simplygojo

[simplygojo]

Friend-Of-A-Friend ── Chapter Twelve

author's note ⸺ Hi friends!!!! I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS ONEEEE - It is not well edited because I am on the road traveling right now and have posted this to queue for later this month!! The tag list will also have not been updated since I have not been online…but I hope this works AND I CANT WAIT TO READ UR COMMENTS AND DMs WHEN I AM HOMEEEEE!!! LOVE YOU LMK HOW YOU LIKE THE SERIES SO FAR <3 pairing ⸺ Suguru Geto x Reader content ⸺ corporate-worker!reader, emotional tension, modern au, the good-ole-days trope, reader uses female pronouns, YEARNNINGGGGG, detailed descriptions smoking (weed + cigs), high tensions, Suguru's POV, taglist at end, 3.1k, this is an 18+ series - mdni

divider credit: @/toastray ୨୧ art credit: @/juziluohai

previous chapter ୨୧ series masterlist ୨୧ next chapter

Suguru's POV: Present Day — On the Balcony

He hadn’t expected her to say anything. 

But then she looked at him with that crooked little smile—equal parts curious and cautious—and said, lightly, “Didn’t think you were paying that much attention to me.”

It came dressed like a joke, but it wasn’t one. He could tell. It sat more like a shield than a punchline, softening something she wasn’t quite ready to name.

And god—how could she not have noticed before now?

He couldn’t help but admire the way she was always trying—at everything. Not in a desperate way, not in a loud way. Just… in the way that mattered.

And yet she said it like she was surprised. Like it hadn’t ever crossed her mind that he might be looking at her. 

Something shifted in him then—stronger than it had before. Silence didn’t feel like an option anymore. Not saying anything felt too close to dishonesty.

So he said it, low. A little rougher than he’d intended.

“I’ve always paid attention to you.”

There wasn’t a hint of hesitation in him—just the quiet certainty of someone who knew exactly what he meant. At least, that’s how it felt to him. Like she recognized it. Maybe she hadn’t meant to let it show, but she did. He knew that she knew.

And something in him gave, just slightly.

There was an uncomfortable tightness in his throat—a feeling growing behind the silence, held in check by steady breaths and quiet resolve.

He felt it then, how badly he wanted her to understand. How much he needed to give this part of himself over—to let it land and to let her know just how much power she held over him. 

But he moved carefully, because the last thing he ever wanted was to give you a reason not to like him.

So when he spoke again, his voice came quieter. Closer.

Like a truth that had been held back so long it almost pained him to say aloud.

“I think I started paying attention to you before you ever said a word to me.”

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

Suguru's POV: Over The Years

He was supposed to meet Gojo and his new girlfriend.

It was the first day of classes after winter break. The cold was knife-sharp—one of those clear, windless days where every breath left your lips in smoke. His scarf itched at the edge of his jaw. 

His hands were stuffed deep in his coat pockets. He was running late, boots clicking against the frozen pavers that cut across the quad.

Then he saw her.

She was standing just outside the library, half-shadowed by the arch of the building, talking to someone. To Gojo—as well as the person he could only assume was the girlfriend he was meant to meet.

Suguru slowed before he even realized he had.

She was turned slightly away, but he could see enough—the thick, rich blue scarf wrapped around her neck, pulled up over her head like a soft cocoon. Her hands were bare, curled around a paper coffee cup, steam rising in thin ribbons through the cold.

Her mouth moved, smiling around something Gojo must’ve said. But she didn’t laugh loudly. She didn’t throw her head back. It was just slightly quieter than that. Contained. Like the warmth she gave off wasn’t for show.

There was something about that moment—something painfully unremarkable in its simplicity—that hit him in a way he couldn’t name. Not then. Not yet.

She was just… there.

And suddenly, the day was not the same.

Suguru didn’t move. Didn’t call out. Gojo hadn’t noticed him yet, and he didn’t give himself the chance to be noticed, either. Something in him curled inward, protective. Possessive of the stillness, the not-yet.

He turned the other way.

Walked off slowly, like if he moved too fast, the spell might break.

He didn’t know her name. Didn’t know anything about her except the way the scarf framed her face and the way she smiled like it was hers alone.

And oh how he prayed that she wasn’t Gojo’s mystery girlfriend.

But even then, even before the first word, there was a part of him that already missed her.

He spent the rest of the walk imagining what she might have said. What she sounded like when she wasn’t with Gojo. Whether her smile looked different when no one was watching. Whether she would’ve turned to him—just once—if he’d called out.

He didn’t.

And she never saw him.

But that moment stayed with him. Lodged quiet and aching in some small pocket of his chest, like a song he couldn’t hum out loud.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

It was warm inside this apartment—humid, really. The kind of heat that came from too many bodies pressed into a too-small apartment, from coat piles on the bed and cheap wine in mismatched cups and bass-heavy music coming from someone’s sad little speaker setup in the corner, but the music was not bad

Suguru wasn’t sure why he agreed to come.

“I don’t know why we’re going to your ex’s place,” he’d said earlier that evening, tugging his hair into a half-knot with a lazy flick of his wrist. “Sounds like a setup.”

Gojo had just grinned, mouth full of nerd clusters (iykyk).

“We dated for like three weeks. It barely even counts, plus she doesn’t care. Besides, I’m tight with one of her roommates now.”

“Tight, huh,” Suguru had muttered, unimpressed.

But he came anyway.

And the moment he stepped inside, the air changed.

Because she was there.

The girl in the blue scarf. 

Only—tonight she wasn’t bundled in wool or shadowed by cold. Tonight she was warm-lit and alive, shoulder tucked close to the kitchen archway, talking to someone over the rim of a red solo cup.

He knew it was her before his brain caught up.

Same mouth. Same eyes. Same posture—casual, a little self-contained, like she was only half-present, like a part of her lived somewhere softer, somewhere no one else could see.

Suguru stopped walking. Just for a breath. Just long enough to feel that same weight in his chest from weeks ago drop down again—low, familiar.

God, she was real.

He stood there quietly, unsure if he wanted her to see him yet. 

Watching her laugh at something someone said, the way she tried to hide it behind her wrist. 

Her hair was loose tonight. She wore a too-small tee shirt, paired with loose jeans that sat low on her hips—careless, effortless. Skin exposed in places he wasn’t ready for. He looked away. Unsure if he deserved to witness that kind of beauty—so easy, so unguarded. Like catching sight of something sacred when you weren’t meant to.

And then Gojo returned—two drinks in hand, bright as ever—and nudged his elbow.

“Oh—sick—there she is! Come on,” he said, already walking ahead. “You should meet her.”

Suguru didn’t move.

Something in him resisted. Not from fear exactly. Not from shyness either. Just from the knowledge that once he heard her voice, once she looked him in the eye—it would be over for him.

And it was.

“Hey!” Gojo said, slipping into her periphery.

“Suguru, this is my friend I was telling you about. She’s the one who dragged me to that gallery thing last week. Said I needed to learn how to shut the hell up and look at art.”

She laughed at that, the sound light and honest.

And then she turned to him.

And she smiled.

That smile was quieter and even more genuine than the laugh. Kind. No edge to it. No performative tilt. Just… genuine interest.

“Hi,” she said, and held out her hand for him to shake. “You’re Geto? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Her voice was exactly as he’d imagined it—light, a little textured, like it sat closer to her chest when she spoke. “I’m—well. I guess you know that already.”

He blinked. Took her hand. “Yeah,” he said softly his eyes still stuck deep within hers. “Gojo talks.”

“God, I hope not too much.”

“He never really stops.”

That made her laugh—and oh god, it was real. No filter, no pullback. The kind of laugh that caught her off guard. Her fingers were still in his. Warm. No rush to let go.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, and finally, gently, pulled her hand back.

“You too.”

And he meant it more than she knew.

He didn’t know what he said next. Something boring measured, probably. Something forgettable.

But he remembered that her hand was smaller than his, and that her skin was cool from the drink, as well as that she smelled of warm vanilla and cinnamon. 

Her eyes held his for just a second longer than politeness required. Or so he liked to think…Those eyes held his attention longer than most people could these days. 

And he knew.

Knew in that breathless, doomed way that he’d only felt once before a few weeks prior. That this moment would mark something. That she would matter.

And that he was already too far in.

He spent the rest of the evening quietly orbiting her—always close enough to listen, never quite close enough to speak. Drifting between conversations, watching for a moment that might open naturally, something easy. 

But nothing about the way he felt was easy. Not even close.

Still, no one noticed. He didn’t give himself away.

Suguru was never the obvious kind. His wanting lived beneath the surface—silent, steady—folded into glances and unfinished thoughts he wouldn’t let himself say out loud.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

The evening had begun to settle in, slow and colourless at first, barely shifting the light through the wide front windows. Inside, his and Gojo’s house began to darken as the evening began. 

A candle burned low on the windowsill, something citrusy she’d lit without asking.

She was sitting there, on the floor again. 

The mirror—a bent, square-framed thing with one chipped corner—sat propped against the coffee table. It hadn’t belonged in the apartment less than an hour ago. 

She’d found it abandoned on the sidewalk while walking over and insisted on carrying it the rest of the way, arms wrapped around the metal frame, leather boots clicking against the pavement.

It was small. Barely wider than her face. Still, she set it down on the coffee table with a kind of ceremony, wiped the dust from the glass with her sleeve, and perched in front of it, already unzipping her makeup pouch.

Meanwhile, Suguru sat back against the couch. One arm was draped along the top cushion. The other wrapped around a sweating solo cup filled with a strong rum and Coke. 

Across the room, her legs crossed and uncrossed beneath her oversized sweatshirt.

There was a fresh smudge of colour on her cheeks—still too vivid, not yet blended. Her knees shifted as she adjusted her angle in the mirror, and the hem of her shorts caught at the top of her thighs every now and then.

Gojo's voice drifted in from the hallway—something about a missing belt—and her laugh answered it without turning around.

She kept her eyes trained on the mirror. One corner of her mouth quirked up at her own reflection.

Mascara wand held steady, she blinked carefully, once, twice. A careful press to the lash-line.

The living room was filled with low music and the occasional demand for another round of shots. Nothing else.

She didn’t speak much when she was doing her makeup. Her face eased into something honest, almost tender, beneath the movement. 

Lips parted slightly as she worked, brows soft. Every gesture precise. Fingertips patting, smoothing, blending.

Suguru hadn't moved in at least twenty minutes.

The light from the candle traced the curve of her jaw in a heavenly way. 

There was no reason for anyone to look that good doing something so ordinary—and yet, she did. As if the divine had grown tired of grand gestures and tucked itself into the smallest, quietest things. 

Her wine glass sat beside the mirror, nearly empty, lipstick blooming at the rim. She reached for it without looking, drained what was left in a single gulp, and gave a little cough behind her wrist. 

The tip of her tongue passed over her bottom lip, catching a drip.

No part of her performance belonged to anyone else.

Suguru let his head fall back against the wall. Eyes low, half-lidded. His attention was unwavering from her.  

From this distance, her scent still carried faintly on the air—something warm and cheap and unmistakably her.

Gojo passed through once, barefoot, muttering about changing his shirt. He tousled her hair as he went. She barely blinked.

No one noticed the way Suguru was watching her. They never did.

She leaned closer to the mirror. A gold hoop earring swung forward, brushing the side of her neck. Her lips drew together, then apart again, searching for symmetry.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t move.

Her presence, casual and glowing, spread out across the room—through the candlelight, the cracked mirror glass, the stray flecks of powder on the coffee table. 

He was mesmerized from the moment he saw her.

Not in the way people usually meant when they said that. Not in that cheap, stunned, double-take sort of way. It was quieter than that. Slower. 

Then came the knock at the door that interrupted his thoughts…

Gojo answered it—loud as ever, already grinning. “Oh, hey! You made it.”

Suguru glanced up as the guy stepped in. Tall. Clean-cut. The kind of buttoned-up smile that looked like it was used to being believed. 

And of course, it was someone she’d met through Gojo.

Suguru watched her rise from the couch, watched her walk over and kiss him like it was nothing. Like she didn’t even have to think about it. And something in his chest twisted—tight and hot, bitter in a way he hadn’t expected. Not jealousy, not quite. Something meaner than that. Possessive, maybe. Unwelcome.

She turned, still smiling, arm around the guy’s waist. “Suguru—this is my boyfriend.”

He nodded. Polite. Said something neutral. He didn’t hear her boyfriend’s response. Didn’t really care.

Later, at the party, Suguru found out everything he could about this guy. Asked the right people. Listened more than he spoke. It didn’t take long. Everyone always had something to say—most of it small, most of it stupid, but Suguru gathered it anyway, pieced together the shape of a man who didn’t deserve her.

Then he passed it all off to Gojo. Let him run wild with it, stretch the truth where it would sting, plant the seeds with a smirk and a shrug.

It wasn’t even a week before the two of you had broken up.

He didn’t say anything when he heard you'd broken up. Didn't need to.

Gojo told him, obviously—grinning like he'd just orchestrated a divine act of justice. Suguru had only lifted a brow and nodded, quiet and unreadable. But he’d felt it. That small, private satisfaction blooming somewhere deep in his chest. Warm. Vicious.

He didn’t feel guilty about it. Not really. The guy had been a dick. And you... You deserved better.

That satisfaction lasted exactly three days.

Because on the fourth, he stepped out of his room, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and found you curled on the couch in one of Gojo’s hoodies—eyes rimmed red, tissue in hand, looking like you hadn’t slept at all.

Gojo was beside you, cross-legged on the floor, remote in hand, flicking through Netflix like he was on a mission. “It has to be low-stakes,” he was muttering. “No heavy trauma. No dead dogs. Just hot people kissing and, like, one unrealistic career change.”

You let out a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. Quiet. Shaky. Suguru stood frozen in the hallway, suddenly unsure whether to walk in or disappear entirely.

That’s when you looked up and saw him.

And something in his chest sank. Because all at once, the satisfaction felt childish. Sharp-edged. Pointless.

He hadn’t expected to feel sorry.

Hadn’t expected it to ache.

But it did—watching you wipe at your face with the sleeve of a hoodie that wasn’t his, trying to laugh like you were fine. Like this wasn’t the first time you’d broken in half right in front of him.

And all he could do was stand there, and feel it all catch up to him.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

Over the years in university, the trio grew even closer. But with her and Suguru…It hadn’t happened all at once.

The closeness crept in gradually—folded between late-night walks, shared playlists, the way her voice softened when she spoke to him directly, or at least he thought she did. 

Somewhere along the way, she’d picked up his worst habit. At first it was teasing. The way she wrinkled her nose and stole a cigarette from the pack in his back pocket. 

Then she asked for one of her own. Then, eventually, she didn’t need to ask.

Suguru didn’t mind. He liked having someone to smoke with.

Especially her.

It made the habit feel less like a vice and more like a ritual. Something private. Something slow.

That night wasn’t special. Not really. Just one of the ones that slipped in between—hot, airless, and too humid to sleep. Crickets chirped in the tall grass just beyond the porch, a soft, constant pulse in the background. The moon hung swollen and pale behind a gauze of clouds. Nothing moved.

They sat shoulder to shoulder on the porch steps. Her thighs stuck to the wood. She wore some kind of tank top, hair pulled back lazily, and she held the cigarette like she’d been doing it all her life. Their arms brushed when she passed it back to him, and he didn’t pull away.

They hadn’t said much. Didn’t need to.

The quiet was comfortable—settled. Words would’ve only interrupted the rhythm of the evening: the sharp inhale, the pass, the clink of ice in the glass beside her knee. Smoke drifted slowly up into the air above them, curling into the heat like it belonged there.

A few minutes passed that way. Back and forth. Cigarette, joint, silence.

There was sweat gathering at the base of his neck, and he could see it shining at the hollow of her throat too. A curl had come loose from her hair, sticking just slightly to her cheek.

She didn’t wipe it away.

Suguru leaned his head back against the wooden post, letting his eyes fall half-shut. The smoke tasted sweeter coming from her lips. Not the joint itself—just the trace of her on the paper, faint and lingering.

She reached down and scratched at a mosquito bite on her shin, muttering something under her breath. He didn’t catch it. Didn’t ask her to repeat it. He was just happy to be involved.

The night stretched out ahead of them, endless and still.

And in that stillness, he found a peace he didn’t know he needed. 

He wouldn’t mind if every day unfolded like this.

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[simplygojo]

hi pookie NOT CRITICIZING U BUT joints are just weed, i didnt know if

u knew or not bc u kept saying joint when referring to cigarettes so i just wanted to lyk!! if ur referring to smth that has weed and tobacco u can say spliff or some ppl even say blunt if its more cigar like:)!!!

Hi!!

Also not criticizing but if you read carefully they are smoking BOTH joints and cigarettes at the same time. Hope this helps!

I am from Canada, so trust me…I have good weed knowledge lollll

[simplygojo]

Friend-Of-A-Friend ── Chapter Eleven

author's note ⸺ Hello my friends!! This is the first time I'm doing this but I am actually out of the country rn and scheduled these posts in advanced...spooky asf...ANYWAYS, I am STOKED to be finally getting to show you guys the next few chapters...I have never enjoyed writing something so much before... pairing ⸺ Suguru Geto x Reader content ⸺ corporate-worker!reader, emotional tension, modern au, the good-ole-days trope, reader uses female pronouns, detailed descriptions smoking (weed + cigs), high tensions, sexual vibes from certain actions IYKYK taglist at end, 4k, this is an 18+ series - mdni

divider credit: @/toastray ୨୧ art credit: @/juziluohai

previous chapter ୨୧ series masterlist ୨୧ next chapter

The rest of the evening unfolded in a rhythm both familiar and new, like a well-worn melody revisited with fresh ears. 

You yapped on and on—stories, half-formed thoughts, little observations that normally might have sounded trivial but felt vital somehow with him listening. 

Suguru listened, as he always did: thoughtful, calm, absorbing everything with quiet attentiveness. No interruptions, no rushing, just his steady presence across you.

Your khao soi was amazing, every bite a spicy, creamy comfort that wrapped around you like a warm blanket. Butttt you’d already been eyeing his pad see ew, you could almost taste the garlicky sweetness.

So, naturally, he offered to share with you. 

Takeout containers swapped back and forth, forks reaching into each other’s without permission. 

It wasn’t just food, really—it was the easy intimacy of sharing space and tastes, the soft brush of elbows and fingers as you both navigated the small table, the gentle teasing over who got more noodles or the last bite of chicken.

Laughter bubbled up freely between the two of you, sharp and light, woven through with those little cracks of nostalgia and something quietly thrilling about this unplanned evening stretching out, unhurried and full.

The conversation had wandered—looping through old classmates you barely remembered, the worst professors you never could forget, random threads about documentaries you’d watched, weird dreams you’d had, how Gojo still texted like he was trapped in 2016.

Suguru had a way of pulling things out of you without even trying. He didn’t pry, just followed the current wherever you let it go. 

And by the time you realized how late it had gotten, your legs were tangled loosely with his beneath the table—ankles brushing, knees occasionally nudging. Neither of you moved to untangle them.

Your khao soi was gone, his noodles nearly demolished, and the playlist had drifted into something mellow and familiar.

You leaned back slightly, your weight resting on your palms, and let the silence linger for a beat. The low hum of the evening wrapped around you both—soft, golden, unrushed.

“This is good,” you said, more to yourself than to him.

Across from you, Suguru glanced up. “The food?”

You tilted your head, eyes flicking over the room—the soft lighting, the nearly empty containers, the lazy sprawl of limbs beneath the table where your ankle brushed his. “All of it.”

He nodded once, slowly. That quiet, deliberate kind of nod he gave when he was really listening. When he agreed with more than just the words.

Silence crept in again, unbothered. The kind that settled instead of pressed. There was something expansive about it—like the night had opened just enough to make space for both of you without crowding either.

“You always eat that slow?” he asked after a while, eyeing your mostly-finished takeout.

You narrowed your eyes at him. “I was talking the whole time!”

He raised a brow, not even pretending to deny it. “You most definitely were,” he said, and there wasn’t a hint of teasing in it. Just a quiet observation. “You do that when you’re comfortable.”

You let out a soft laugh, more breath than sound. “Yeah, I guess... But at least I’m not on the same level as Gojo.”

“Not even close,” he said, without missing a beat. Then, after a pause, “You talk the perfect amount.”

Something about the way he said it—simple, matter-of-fact—landed somewhere low in your chest. Not dramatic. Just... steady. Certain. 

“Yeah? Well, at least someone thinks so.” 

Your voice had a smile in it, even if your mouth didn’t move. And Suguru didn’t say anything in response. You enjoyed the peaceful silence that often came during conversations with Suguru. 

His gaze held yours for a moment, steady and unreadable, before it dropped—trailing down to the table, the space between you, then to where your legs were still tangled loosely beneath. 

His eyes lingered there, thoughtful but unreadable, before slowly making their way back up to your face.

When he met your eyes again, there was nothing overt in his expression. Just a flicker of something—quiet, grounded—before he looked away, as casually as if he hadn’t done any of that.

The silence held, easy and warm, the jazzy playlist spinning out into the background.

Then, trying to sound like it had just occurred to you, you glanced over at him and asked, “Wanna smoke?”

It came out light. Casual. The same way you might ask if he wanted tea.

You already knew he’d have something on him—he always did. 

And it wasn’t that you weren’t enjoying the night sober. You most definitely were. More than you expected to, even.

But something about having him here again made you crave the quiet buzz of it. Not for the high, exactly—just the way it made things stretch out a little longer between the two of you. Settle a little deeper. 

Suguru tilted his head, slowly, like he was weighing the question for no real reason except that he liked to make you wait.

“Sure,” he said, nodding. “You got anything?”

You had no reply. 

Just a slow smile, lips pressing together before curving. One eyebrow edged up, eyes soft and wide with a flicker of guilt tucked just beneath the surface—open, a little sheepish. The kind of look that confessed without a word, like a kid caught red-handed and hoping charm might soften the blow.

His eyes narrowed a little, amused by your reaction. Then he huffed a dry laugh—quiet and disbelieving.

He knew you wouldn’t.

“Of course you don’t,” he muttered, pushing himself up from the rug with a low grunt.

You watched him pat down one pocket, then the other—those loose, baggy jeans slung low enough on his hips that glimpses of skin flashed beneath the hem of his sweatshirt. Finally, he reached deep into one of the front pockets and pulled out a small pack of cigarettes and a white plastic tube you recognized instantly.

Same kind as the other night.

He held them up in his hand and gave his black lighter a harsh flick—the corner of his mouth quirking just slightly. 

“Lucky for you...” he said, not bothering to finish his sentence since you had already sprung up from the carpet yourself. 

You padded toward the balcony, brushing the curtain aside with the back of your hand. The night air slid in through the small opening—cooler than expected, but slightly humid. 

City sounds drifted in from below: a distant honk, the low murmur of someone’s television, footsteps echoing against the sidewalk a few stories down.

Behind you, the soft rustle of fabric and the click of the lighter as Suguru followed. 

You both stepped out in your socks, the chill of the concrete biting against the lingering warmth still clinging to your skin from dinner.

You crossed the small balcony with ease, stepping up to the railing and resting your forearms along the cool metal. 

The night opened wide in front of you—glowing windows across the street, the soft buzz of a distant streetlamp, the low sound of a car rolling past far below. You leaned in slightly, letting the breeze graze your skin, eyes drifting across the quiet stretch of city.

Suguru stepped out after you, settling into place at your side but turning to face the opposite direction. 

He leaned his weight into the railing behind him, arms draped casually over the edge, one ankle hooked over the other. His head dipped slightly, gaze lowered, like something quiet on the ground had caught his attention.

He then brought the joint to his mouth with one hand, lighter already in the other, the flame catching with a soft shhck as he shielded it from the breeze. 

The tip flared amber as he drew in, cheeks hollowing slightly, eyes half-lidded beneath the porch light.

He turned his head, exhaling with a quiet huff. The smoke drifted out in a low stream, curling in the narrow space between your bodies—thin and silver, catching faintly in the light before disappearing into the dark.

Then, without a word, he leaned slightly closer, extending the joint toward you with a slow, deliberate ease. 

His wrist tilted just so, barely enough to catch your eye, and that sideways glance held a quiet challenge, half amusement, half something unspoken.

You accepted it without a word, feeling just as at ease chatting endlessly with Suguru as you did sharing the quiet—both rare comforts in their own way.

The cigarette came next—same slow flick of the lighter, same steady inhale.

He didn’t speak right away, just let the first drag settle in his chest before easing it out through his nose. The smoke trailed upward in a thin, silvery stream, catching in the amber glow of the porch light overhead.

For a while, the quiet between you stretched—easily, unbroken. The kind of silence that didn’t ask for anything.

You brought the joint to your lips again and pulled long and slow, until the heat bit at the base of your throat.

Thick and dry and hot—burning at first, then blooming into something deeper. You held it in until your lungs ached, until the pressure turned warm, and then let it spill from your mouth in a slow, steady stream.

God, that feeling.

It was almost embarrassing how much you’d missed it. Not just the taste or the heat, but the drop. 

That barely-there second where the world tilted, just a little—like a table leg knocked loose under your thoughts—and then settled again, softer somehow. Rounder. Slower. 

There was nothing like it.

You blinked, and the air felt denser. Your limbs heavier in the nicest way. That familiar buzz was already collecting behind your eyes, and a thick cotton haze that dulled everything sharp and left only the quiet.

The high didn’t slam into you. It slipped in.

Easy. Familiar. Like something half-forgotten crawling back into your bloodstream.

And you welcomed it.

You glanced at Suguru without turning your head, and for a second, you just watched the way the smoke curled from the cigarette in his hand.

It rose in soft spirals, catching the amber light before disappearing into the dark—same rhythm as you remembered, same quiet focus in the way he held it. 

There was something soothing about it, almost hypnotic. Like a loop your body still remembered how to fall into.

Another breath, another drag.

This time, you didn’t think before pulling it in—just let it happen.

And behind the smoke that was beginning to collect on your porch, behind the porch light glow, you could feel it starting to hook into your ribs again. 

That old habit. That soft ache for softness.

Below, the city kept moving. But up here, the moment held.

Suguru shifted just enough to catch your gaze, his eyes narrowing subtly—calm, steady, quietly attentive, as if weighing something unspoken. 

His voice came low and close as he finally broke the quiet.

“You always bait people into sharing their stash with that look of yours?”

You exhaled smoke, letting it linger on your smile before poking some fun at him. “Hmm…only the ones who buy me dinner first.”

He huffed—just once—and reached out to take the joint from your hand. You let it go with a soft laugh.

He passed you the cigarette in exchange, sliding it gently between your fingers. His touch lingered—not long, but long enough.

Suguru brought the joint to his lips—but paused.

You saw it too. The faint pink tint left on the filter—barely there, but noticeable if you looked close enough. Which he usually did.

And something in him gave, just slightly.

Not much. Just the flicker of it—so fast you might’ve missed it if you hadn’t been watching him so closely. 

A slight shift in his posture.

The smallest flex in his jaw, like he’d just clenched and released it in the same breath. His fingers tightened around the joint for half a second too long.

He brought the joint to his mouth, slower this time.

You caught the way his gaze flicked to the filter just as he aligned the joint to his lips—purposefully, precisely—so that his lips landed exactly where yours had been. 

Not beside it. Not around it. Dead center. Like it was intentional. Like he wanted to feel the trace of you there.

And maybe you imagined it, but his eyelids seemed just a touch heavier as they fluttered shut as he inhaled.

The inhale was deep, deeper than the last—shoulders rising just slightly beneath the black sweatshirt, the edge of his jaw flexing with the pull.

The ember glowed bright orange, burning through the quiet between you. Then dimmed.

He held it for a breath.

Two.

The smoke trailed out between you, catching for a moment in the porch light before fading into the night.

But he didn’t turn away with the smoke.

Instead, he turned his head toward you.

Deliberate.

The joint still balanced between his fingers, the faintest trace of pink still visible on the paper where your lips had touched.

His gaze wasn’t sharp, but it was focused. On you. Then, unmistakably, on the joint.

Still between his fingers.

Still bearing the faint pink outline of your lips.

After a short moment, his gaze met yours again and held, though the intensity you thought you felt from it was a little too heated to be casual.

Though to be honest, you did have a pretty good imagination.

Then—quiet enough that it slipped between heartbeats, like something not meant to be spoken aloud—

“You don’t even notice what you do, do you?”

He didn’t blink. Didn’t smirk. Just said it like a fact. Like a truth he’d stumbled over and hadn’t figured out what to do with.

Your breath caught—not visibly, not in any way that showed. But you felt it. That slight catch in your chest.

You followed his eyes to the joint and saw it clearly now—the imprint left behind. A soft crescent mark. Too faint to call attention to itself. Too specific to ignore.

Your first instinct was to brush it off. Laugh, maybe. Say something clever.

But you didn’t. You simply tried to ignore the strange, pulsing awareness suddenly alive under your skin.

The two of you just stared at each other for a moment—maybe testing boundaries—maybe not. Your throat felt dry, but it was not from the smoke.

Still, you managed to tilt your head—just a little—and let your eyes flick down to the joint, then back up to his.

“Didn’t think you were paying that much attention to me.”

You said with a laugh, though it sounded more like a deflection than a punchline. You tilted your head, trying to cool the sudden heat rising up the back of your neck.

Suguru didn’t look away.

He didn’t speak, either—not right away. He just held your gaze like he was searching for something in it.

And then, lower his time, like it cost him more—

“I’ve always paid attention to you.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was full. Full to the damn birm. Full with things unsaid. With you. With him. With the space you hadn’t yet figured out how to cross, let alone if you were even meant to cross it.

Your breath caught again, not from nerves, but from recognition. And maybe he saw that in you, because when he spoke again, it came softer. Closer.

Like a confession held too long in the chest.

He swallowed, just once.

“I think I started paying attention to you before you ever said a word to me.” The words hung there, strange and bare between you, like he hadn’t meant to say them out loud. Like they’d slipped out before he could stop them.

He let out a breath after, quiet and uneven. His gaze had drifted somewhere just past you—distant, unfixed—like he was searching the back of his mind for something half-remembered. 

Whatever passed across his face wasn’t obvious, but you could tell he was sifting through something. Quietly. Carefully.

You didn’t turn away, but you didn’t meet his eyes either. Just stood there with the cigarette between your fingers, smoke curling softly into the night.

The city stretched out in front of you—indifferent, glittering—but all you could feel was the nearness of him beside you. The quiet shift in the air between two bodies that hadn’t moved physically, but had still somehow drawn closer.

He was facing you now, fully. You could feel the weight of his attention on your profile, the way his body curved slightly toward yours like it was his natural instinct.

You took a drag, mostly for something to do with your mouth, then exhaled slowly through your nose. Your pulse ticked at your throat.

And there it was—that moment. The one where you could lean in, crack yourself open just a little, acknowledge the way his words had landed heavy and unguarded between you.

But being you, you took the other route. The safer one. The one with teeth and a crooked smile.

“You know,” you said, tilting your head just slightly, “when you say shit like that, I can’t tell if you’re flirting with me or like hexing me.”

A moment passed. Then the corner of his mouth tugged up—just slightly—and he let out a quiet breath, almost a laugh. You liked pulling that out of him. He didn’t give it easily.

“Kinda cryptic,” you added, a little lighter now. Like maybe you hadn’t been holding your breath since he first spoke.

A pause. Then, a quiet breath out from him—almost a laugh.

You caught it from the corner of your eye. That small pull at the corner of his mouth. Hard to earn, but always real when it came.

He reached over and took the cigarette from between your fingers, swapping it for the joint without a word. It was a quiet motion. Unspoken, but easy—like slipping back into the peaceful rhythm the two of you already knew.

He didn’t look away. Just held your gaze for a second longer than necessary with that sly smile plastered on his lips.

Then, casually—so lightly you almost missed it. “You deflect well.”

It wasn’t a challenge. Not even a comment, really. Just a quiet truth laid down without expectation—like he was naming something he'd noticed, not asking you to change it.

Your smile shifted—not bigger, just different. Softer at the edges. A little tired, maybe. A little caught.

He didn’t follow it up with anything else. And you didn’t explain. You knew he understood why you deflected. 

“Thanks,” you said, voice low—dry, but not unkind. You flicked ash off the joint with a practiced tap, then glanced at him sideways. “It’s a skill.”

His eyes didn’t leave yours. Not even when you looked away first. He just nodded once, like he accepted that answer, but didn’t buy it completely.

Silence settled in again, but it wasn’t cold. It was that strange kind of quiet that meant something had shifted. Not everything—but enough that it’d be impossible to pretend it hadn’t.

And still, neither of you moved.

You brought the joint to your lips again, slower this time. Drew in a breath that didn’t quite steady you the way it should have.

For a while, that was all there was—the dim sound of traffic below, the rustle of city wind against the balcony rail, the shared quiet between you. The silence had shifted. Not tense, exactly, but dense—like air thick with something unspoken. 

You could feel it in the space between you. That subtle hum of awareness, too quiet to name but impossible to ignore. His knee just barely angled toward yours. It was the kind of quiet that asked a question without saying it out loud. And you weren’t sure you had an answer.

You shifted slightly, suddenly hyper-aware of how long it had been since either of you said anything. You became aware of your own heartbeat—too present in the quiet, like your body had forgotten how to relax. 

A ripple of self-consciousness stirred, tightening in your chest in an unfamiliar way that made you want to fill the air with anything: a laugh, a cough, some half-formed sentence that didn’t matter, so long as it broke the tension.

Then you cleared your throat softly.

“Well.” You shifted your weight, glanced at the time on your phone, even though you hadn’t gotten any notifications. “Look at that. Almost midnight. Time really flies…or whatever…”

You tried for casual—tried to keep it light, but the words didn’t feel right coming out of your mouth. “We’ve both got work in the morning. You should probably head out before I start offering you a toothbrush and drawer space.”

It was meant to be a joke, but your voice caught just slightly at the end. Not enough to ruin it. Just enough that he noticed. 

Suguru’s brow lifted—barely—and his mouth curved upwards into a knowing smile, but he didn’t tease you for it. He just tilted his head, a little thoughtful now, like he was deciding whether or not to say something.

Instead, he nodded once. “Yeah. Guess you’re right.”

He leaned forward and tapped the spent cigarette against the edge of the balcony rail. Ash scattered into the wind, and a second later, he flicked the butt out into the night with a lazy flick of his fingers. You followed suit—dropped what was left of the joint between two slats, watching it tumble into the darkness below without a sound.

A sudden breath left you, quicker than you’d meant, and you pushed off the railing, wiping your hands on the front of your jeans like it somehow reset something in your body. 

“Okay, well…” you said, already moving toward the balcony door, too brisk to seem casual. “Thanks for hanging out and stuff. This was—yeah. Fun.”

You winced inwardly at the clumsy string of words but didn’t stop. He didn’t say anything—just followed you in, slow and quiet, like he always moved. You left the balcony door cracked behind you and padded barefoot across the apartment, flicking on the hallway light as you went. The warm overhead glow felt too bright all of a sudden, too ordinary for the way your chest was still buzzing.

You stopped at the front door and turned, but he was already there, standing a few feet behind you. Not crowding, not lingering—just… there. Hands in his pockets. Eyes still on you, steady.

You reached for the door handle and paused, trying to think of something smooth to say. Anything that might make the end of this feel less weird than it suddenly did.

“Anyway,” you said, voice thinner than you meant. “Thanks for, um—dinner. The noodles were really good.”

He gave a small nod, a smile pulling gently at his mouth. “Thanks for the company.”

You smiled back, or tried to, but it faltered at the edges. You hesitated, fingers still resting on the door like you might open it, —like you weren’t sure if you should.

He tilted his head slightly. Waited.

“I’m not kicking you out or anything,” you said, too quickly. “I just figured—you know, we’ve both got stuff in the morning, and I didn’t want you to feel like you had to stay. Not that you were going to. But if you were—I mean—”

Suguru let out a soft breath. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it eased something in the room. “It’s okay,” he said, gently. “I get it.”

You nodded—once, twice—like that settled it, even though nothing really felt settled.

Then finally, you turned the knob and opened the door for him. He stepped forward, the space between you narrowing for just a second too long.

“Night,” you said, eyes not quite meeting his.

“Night,” he echoed, and you felt his gaze linger a beat longer before he stepped through the doorway.

You closed the door after him swiftly and stayed there, hand against the door, forehead nearly tipping forward until it rested there too. The wood was cool beneath your skin. Real. Grounding. But your stomach was doing something strange. A slow roll, a low twist. Not unpleasant. Just… unfamiliar.

And for the first time in a long time, you had no clue what to do with the way you felt.

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[simplygojo]

TRISHHHHH STOP THIS MADE MY WHOLE DAYYYY <3 <3

This is such a GREAT selection of geto fics I have read SO MANY OF THESE OMG

Hi Trish! I was wondering if you had any Geto recs?

hi nonnie!! i haven't found a ton of geto fics in general, but i do have a couple of recs i can share

as always, please read each authors' rules before interacting :)) i'm sure i'm forgetting some amazing work but these are all that are coming to mind right now

series:

faking it by @indiewritesxoxo - fake dating au love triangle with geto and sukuna. reader is the sweetest and i feel for her and i love this series SOO much

no. one party anthem by @indiewritesxoxo - band au love triangle with sukuna and geto. i love these boys sm and i love the way indie writes them

strangers by @yenayaps - ceo au surrounding geto and reader trying to rekindle a failed marriage. the way sienna captured the drama in this has me on the edge of my seat and i loveeee her geto

remedies and reasons by @lostfracturess - professor geto x law student reader. please please please read this with nici's gojo series symptoms and causes, they take place at the same time and perspectives go back and forth as you read them, nici's angst has a chokehold on me, they're both amazing series

friend-of-a-friend by @simplygojo - corporate au surrounding reader and geto's 'friend-of-a-friend' relationship. the way ann describes each scene is absolutely breathtaking and i love to read this curled up in a blanket with a warm drink

i could love you with my eyes closed by @cinnamorollcrybaby - modern au smau best friends to lovers. the way cinna captures mental health and struggles in this is seriously so heartwarming, i re-read this all the time

oneshots:

symbiosis by @spearofheaven - venom geto smut venom geto smut venom geto smut need i say more? absolutely delicious

nice to meow-t you by @baepsays - reader hooks up with geto and meets his cat(oru). this will make you smile so much, it's so so so fun and cute!!

the drowning by @peppertoastuniverse - hurt/comfort after a nightmare. so so beautifully written and genuinely like a warm hug to read (angst warning for the end, though!)

million dollar baby by @peachsayshi - sex worker!geto x rich girl!reader. this is one of my all time fave oneshots, please give it a shot and just know you won't regret it!

[simplygojo]

A Path I Can't Follow

author's note ⸺ My Star Wars fans will be so happy with this one LOLL, well actually not happy bc its mega angst (iykyk). JUSTICE FOR ANAKIN AND SUGURU!!! I recommend listening to your favourite sad playlist while reading, makes the experience 1111000% better. pairing ⸺ Suguru Geto x f!reader request ⸺ linked here content warning ⸺ violence, grief, loss, death. (yeah, I said mega angst...)

It had been almost a month since Suguru Geto abandoned the Jujutsu world, leaving behind a trail of devastation that none of you could have anticipated. 

The day Gojo gave you the news…your world fractured in ways you couldn’t comprehend.

When Satoru found you in the training hall, his usually carefree expression was replaced with something grim, something haunted. 

The lighthearted banter you’d come to expect from him was absent, replaced by a heavy silence that stretched between you like a void. 

You had known something was wrong before he even said it, but nothing could have prepared you for the words that followed.

Suguru had cursed an entire village—men, women, children—and even worse, his own parents were among them.

Your mind couldn’t grasp it at first. 

The Suguru you knew, the one who held you close on quiet nights, who used to laugh softly at your terrible jokes and talk about a future that didn’t involve exorcisms or endless battles, was suddenly unrecognizable. 

How could he have done something so monstrous?

You remembered staring blankly at Gojo, your body numb, the room spinning as he continued speaking, his voice distant as you felt something hot stream down your cheeks. 

You had been dating Suguru for three years—three years of knowing every side of him…or so you thought. 

But this? 

This was something you could never have imagined.

The ache in your chest was unbearable, it felt as if someone had hollowed you out from the inside. You shook your head violently “No…no…”

You couldn’t produce an image of the man you loved according to the monster Gojo had described. 

The same man who used to trace circles on your back as you fell asleep, whispering that everything would be okay, had now left a village in ruins, and your mind couldn’t process it.

Gojo’s voice had softened when he saw the look on your face, but the pity in his eyes only made it worse, and you fell to the ground in a broken mess. 

"I’m sorry," he’d said, and though you knew he meant it, those words felt hollow, as you knew he had lost someone important too in all of this.

You barely remembered what happened after that. 

The days blurred together in a haze of disbelief and grief. You stayed in your room, replaying every conversation, every mission, searching for the moment when it all went wrong. 

How had you missed this? 

How could Suguru have changed so completely without you realizing it?

The weight of his absence crushed you. 

The empty spaces he left behind—the way your bed felt too big without him in it, the quiet moments in the common room that you used to fill with laughter—were suffocating. 

And no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t escape the truth: Suguru Geto, the man you loved, had become someone you didn’t recognize. 

And you didn’t what from him, no goodbye, no I’m sorry—nothing from the man you loved.

You had been avoiding your phone, pushing the thoughts of Suguru away because they hurt too much to hold onto. 

The soft knock at your bedroom door made your heart jump, only for it to fall when you realized it wasn’t him—It was never him.

But when you opened the door to see a letter laid on the ground—folded, worn edges, and unmistakably his handwriting—your world spun for a moment. 

He had sent it. After everything, after weeks of silence, Suguru sent you a note.

Your fingers trembled as you opened it, heart racing, unsure whether you should laugh or cry at the mere fact that he reached out.

"Meet me."

And, God help you, you went.

—

The air was thick, and the sky was dark when you arrived at the temple. 

It clung to your skin, heavy with unspoken words, with things left unsaid between the two of you. 

Your feet felt like they were sinking into the earth as you climbed the steps, each one pulling you deeper into a place you weren’t sure you could return from.

And there he was.

Suguru stood by the edge of the open hall, staring out into the night, his back turned to you as the wind stirred his long hair. He didn’t move as you approached, didn’t say anything, even though you knew he had to have sensed your presence. 

You swallowed the lump in your throat, willing your voice to come out steady. "Suguru."

It barely came out as a whisper, but it was enough. His shoulders stiffened, the only sign that he had heard you. 

You waited for him to turn, for him to say something—anything—that would make sense of the last few weeks. But he didn’t move.

The silence pressed down on you, suffocating.

“Why did you do all this?” You finally asked, your voice cracking under the weight of the question that had haunted you every day since he disappeared.

Suguru exhaled slowly, a sound that was more sigh than breath. "I had to." He said before finally turning around to face you. 

That was all he offered. 

No apology, no explanation, just that hollow statement, like it was meant to answer everything.

You could see his features soften as your eyes locked. 

He had almost forgotten how beautiful you were, how your features calmed him and brought him warmth—a warmth he hadn’t felt in a long time.

You shook your head, trying to hold yourself together as you spoke softly. 

“You didn’t have to. You didn’t have to curse an entire village to death. You didn’t even tell me—” Your voice cracked as you felt the pain of his absence catching up to you. “You left me. You left all of us.”

Finally, he began slowly walking towards where you stood in the doorway. His eyes met yours, and the sight of him, standing there so composed, so distant, shattered something inside you.

"I couldn’t stay," he said, his voice steady in a way that made your chest ache. "This world… it’s broken. Staying wouldn’t change that."

You took a step toward him, desperation clawing at you. "We could’ve fixed it together. You didn’t even try to talk to Satoru or me. You didn’t have to leave."

He shook his head, his eyes hard, resolute. 

"You shouldn’t bother yourself with Satoru…” He paused, “I’m building something new. Something better. I can’t fix this world from the inside. I can’t pretend anymore." He took a few more steps, closing the distance between you with agonizing slowness, each step erasing the space but widening the gap between who he had been and who he had become.

You felt the urge rise, the instinct to reach out, to touch him like you used to, like it would somehow bring him back to you. 

But your hands stayed frozen at your sides, weighed down by the fear—no, the fact that your beautiful boy was already too far gone.

Your heart dropped. 

The person standing in front of you wasn’t the Suguru you had known, the one who held you close after every mission, the one who whispered your name like it was a prayer. This man was a stranger, distant and cold.

“And what about us?” Your voice cracked again, tears burning behind your eyes as you fought to keep them at bay. “What about everything we had, Suguru?”

His jaw clenched. For a brief moment, something flickered in his eyes, something soft and familiar. But it was gone in an instant, replaced by that same, chilling determination. 

"I can’t go back." His voice was quiet but firm as his thumb ran over your sift skin, reminding you of the happiness you once had with this man.

Unbeknownst to you, tears began to slip down your cheeks, hot and unchecked. You leaned into his touch, your voice trembling with emotion. 

“What you are doing…I-It’s insane. You, me, the others—we were building something.”

He shook his head, his expression hardening as his gaze turned distant again but still locked onto your crying eyes, his hand moving down to rest on the side of your neck, his touch was cold on your warm skin. 

“No, y/n. We weren’t building anything. I was just wasting my time.”

You flinched as if he had struck you, the weight of his words slamming into you, stealing the breath from your lungs. 

“Wasting time?” 

You staggered back, away from his grasp, shaking your head, hands gripping your arms as though trying to hold yourself together. 

“This isn’t you, Suguru. You’re not this... this person. You’re not—not a monster…” Your voice faltered, a sob finally breaking free from your quivering lips as you looked away from his once-kind eyes. 

“Come home to me, baby. Please.”

You hated how desperate you sounded, how your heart felt like it was shattering in your chest as you stood there, pleading with the only person you had ever truly loved.

“I can’t,” he said softly, and that softness hurt worse than anything else. His eyes met yours, and you saw it—the finality in them. 

“I’m building something new. A world where the weak don’t suffer. A world that’s right.”

Tears streamed down your face, hot and bitter, but you couldn’t stop them. “We could do that together! We could—”

“No, y/n!” His voice cut through the air like a blade, sharp and cold as ice. 

He had never yelled at you, never raised his voice like this, and the sound of it sent a fresh wave of pain and fear crashing over you. 

“We can’t.”

You flinched at his harshness, your breath hitching as his words sank in. He looked away, jaw clenched tight, as if the mere sight of your tears was too much for him. 

"I’m doing this for us," he continued, his voice lower but no less resolute. "For everyone.”

"Suguru…you’re breaking my heart, you’re going down a path I can’t follow” The words slipped out, quiet but forceful. Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked at him, the man you always thought you couldn’t live without.

He shook his head softly, slowly approaching you as you moved away from him. “Y/n…everything I’ve done, has been necessary…"

“Necessary?” You spat, your voice trembling as your grief twisted into rage, angry tears streaming down your face. “You think abandoning me—abandoning everything we have worked for—is necessary?”

He shook his head, taking small steps towards you slowly closing the space between you once more. 

“You don’t understand,” he murmured. “I’m not abandoning you. I’m—”

“Then what is this?!” You interrupted, your voice breaking as the pain inside you twisted into something desperate, broken. 

“What do you call this if not abandonment?!” You screamed, your tear-filled eyes locking with his, and you knew he could see the pain in your soul, the pain he caused you.

Suguru’s eyes flashed, a familiar glint passing through them, and for the first time since you arrived, you saw something close to regret in his gaze. He looked at you in a way you never thought you’d get to see again—with love.

Before you could even react, his lips were on yours, urgent and full of emotion. 

The kiss hit you like a truck, your breath stolen from your lungs as his hand moved to the back of your head, fingers threading gently through your hair as he desperately pulled you closer.

The shock of it left you frozen for a heartbeat, but then your body responded on its own, your hands reaching up to cup his face. 

Your fingers brushed against the familiar curve of his jaw, the rough stubble beneath your touch grounding you in a moment that felt both surreal and inevitable. 

The kiss wasn’t gentle—it was raw, a mixture of desperation and longing, as if he were trying to pour every unsaid word, every unresolved feeling, into the press of his lips.

Suguru kissed you like it was the only thing that mattered in the world, as if he could somehow erase the pain that he saw reflected in your tears with this one act. 

His lips were soft, but his grip on you was firm, holding you as if he couldn’t bear to let go. 

And for a moment, you let yourself fall into it—into him. You let the world fall away, let the ache in your chest dissolve into the warmth of his touch.

Your hands trembled slightly as they moved from his jaw to the back of his neck, pulling him closer, refusing to let him slip away again. 

His kiss deepened, and you felt the weight of all the emotions he wasn’t saying—the regret, the sorrow, the love that still lingered between you, even in the midst of everything.

But as your lips moved with his, the reality of what was happening began to creep back in. 

This kiss wasn’t a promise—it was a goodbye, a last grasp at something that had already been broken beyond repair. 

You could feel it in the way his body pressed against yours, in the way his breath hitched slightly as he pulled away, his forehead resting against yours as he caught his breath.

His hand lingered on the back of your head, but there was a distance in his touch, a hesitation that hadn't been there before. 

When you opened your eyes and looked into his, you saw the tears welling up, threatening to spill from the depths of his deep purple gaze.

“Suguru…” Your voice was soft as you spoke, 

“I love you, I have, continue to, and will forever love you.” 

You watched his eyes search yours, the unspoken words hanging heavily in the air as a single tear slipped down his cheek, his lips quivered slightly, and you felt your heart shatter within your chest. 

Instinctively, you raised your thumb to wipe it away, your gentle touch resting on his skin as your hands cradled his face. The warmth of his skin under your fingertips contrasted sharply with the hot tears streaming down your own face, the ache in your chest growing as you held onto each other tightly. 

His fingers traced small, soothing patterns on your cheek, evoking the memories of laughter and love you once shared, of moments that felt invincible and eternal.

“Please, baby, come h—” you began, desperation threading through your voice, the plea heavy on your lips. But before you could finish, he cut you off with another kiss—this one frantic and urgent, a collision of emotions. 

Your lips moved together, moisture mixing due to you both crying, it was as if he were trying to convey everything he couldn't articulate, the weight of his sorrow and regret pouring into the embrace. 

His hands became tangled in your hair again as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding into your mouth with familiarity.

He kissed you with a fervour that spoke of longing, a need to bridge the gap that had formed between you. 

This kiss was deeper and more intense, echoing the confessions left unspoken, the promises he had broken. 

In that moment, you both surrendered to the flood of feelings that surged between you, clinging to each other as if the world around you had ceased to exist.

He pulled away gently, leaning his forehead against yours. 

“Please, Suguru,” you said through your tears, your voice raw. “I love you. I love you so much.”

For a long, agonizing moment, he didn’t say anything. 

He just looked at you, as if memorizing the way you looked right then—broken, crying, desperate. 

“Love won’t save you, y/n, only power can do that.” He said, straightening his spine and letting his hands fall to his sides. 

“But at what cost? You are a good person, probably the best I’ve ever met. Don’t do this!” You cried, watching his eyes darken with something you weren't familiar with. 

“You don’t understand, y/n, I am bringing about the world of the sorcerers! Those monkeys needed to be taken out in order for us to survive.” He tried explaining, and you felt your heart practically tearing apart.

“I don’t believe what I’m hearing…Satoru was right…You’ve changed.” You said, taking a few steps backward to create some space between you. You noticed his eyebrows crinkle at the sound of your words.

“I don’t want to hear any more about Satoru!” He shouted, growing visibly angry as he continued, “He thinks he can take anything he wants, don’t you let him take you from me too!” 

You let out a defeated sigh, but the hot stream of tears didn’t stop flowing. “I don't know you anymore Suguru…”

“Because of Satoru?” He said accusingly.

You shook you head, a look of disbelief sprawled across your face. 

“Because of what you've done—What you plan to do! Stop! Stop now... come back! I love you!”

Suguru’s features softened and he took a gentle step towards you. Before you could get another word out, his eyes darted to the doorway behind you, and that dark angered look returned. 

You turned your head to meet the object of his gaze and were surprised to see Gojo standing in the doorway, his shades loosely between two fingers at his side.

“You’re with him! You brought him here because you know he’s the only one who can kill me!” Suguru shouted, his eyes meeting yours with a raging fire you hadn’t seen before, sending a wave of fear through your body. 

“No! I don’t know why he’s her–.” You pleaded your hands clasping together in front of you—But Suguru wasn’t listening. 

All he saw was red—the overwhelming rage and betrayal clouding his judgment, twisting every word you said into something darker.

Without hesitation, his hand lifted, fingers curling into a fist. The motion was swift, almost instinctive, and before you could react, the sensation of his familiar snake-like curse coiled around your body. 

Its grip tightened with terrifying speed, constricting your airway, and your breath hitched violently.

Panic surged through you as your vision began to blur. You tried to speak, tried to plead with him, but the pressure around your throat made it impossible. 

Your hands flew up to your neck in a futile attempt to loosen the curse’s grip, but it was no use.

Your eyes locked onto his, searching for some sign of the man you once loved—some hint of the tenderness he used to show you. But the fire in his gaze was all-consuming, the rage overpowering the softness you had once known.

Tears streamed down your face, each drop burning against your skin as your body began to falter. 

Yet, through the haze of suffocating pain, you noticed something—the glistening tears that fell from Suguru’s own eyes, tracing silent paths down his cheeks.

Even in his anger, his heart ached. 

But it wasn’t enough to stop him.

Before you could let out your final breath, you managed to say one last thing as you stared into his dangerous eyes–the same ones you fell in love with, searching for one last glimpse of the man you loved.

“I will–always love–you.” You breathed, voice hoarse as you felt your body slip into unconsciousness. 

A single tear slipped down his cheek, one he didn’t bother wiping away this time. The weight of your final words crushed him, cracking through the hardened shell he’d encased himself in. 

‘I can’t let Satoru take her from me’ he thought to himself.

Suguru’s heart pounded in his chest, his mind racing as your words hung in the air like a ghost. 

‘I will—always love—you.’

It was as if the last shred of your strength had been spent in those words, the way you looked at him, your eyes full of love and pain, piercing through the darkness he’d embraced.

His grip on you tightened, the snake-like curse coiling around your now limp neck with unrelenting force. 

His thoughts were frantic—disjointed. 

But then, Gojo’s voice boomed, snapping through the suffocating tension like a whip, 

“Suguru, let her go!” It wasn’t a request—it was a command. At that moment, the intensity of Gojo's eyes was enough to shake even Suguru.

“Let her go, damn it!” Gojo’s voice cracked, desperation seeping through his usual unshakable composure. 

“You’ve probably just killed her!”

Suguru’s hands faltered, his eyes widening in sudden horror. 

Gojo’s words pierced through the haze of rage clouding his mind. 

Killed her? No… That couldn’t be true. 

He hadn’t meant to hurt you, hadn’t meant for this to happen. He’d only wanted to protect you—to keep you by his side.

“No…no, no, no…” Suguru muttered, releasing the curse, causing your body to fall to the floor with a loud thud. His hand covered his mouth as he stumbled back. 

His eyes flickered between you and Gojo, and he quickly went to hold you in his arms. “No!” 

Panic seeped into his gaze as he saw your limp form cradled in his arms, your head lolling to the side. 

‘No, she’s not—she can’t be—’

“Y/n…?” Suguru whispered, dropping to his knees beside you, his trembling hands hovering over your neck, unsure, terrified of what he might find. 

His breathing hitched, and for the first time in a month, Suguru Geto was terrified.

“Suguru, what did you do?!” Gojo's voice rang out again, fury and heartbreak mingling together. 

His hands clenched at his sides, every muscle in his body taut as he fought the urge to tear Suguru apart. 

But even now, beneath the rage, there was still that glimmer of hope—hope that you could be saved.

Suguru shook his head, his movements erratic, his denial absolute. “She’s—she’s fine, I didn’t… I didn’t mean to—” His voice broke, trembling as his eyes darted between your pale face and Gojo’s stricken expression. 

He hadn’t meant to kill you—he never meant for it to end this way.

“I-I didn’t—” His words trailed off, his mind spiralling as he realized the depth of what he had done. 

The weight of his actions crashed down on him, and for a moment, he was paralyzed by the enormity of his guilt.

Gojo’s eyes narrowed, his hands trembling as he walked towards where you laid in his arms.

“Suguru,” he growled, voice laced with cold fury. 

“You’ve killed her.”

“No!” Suguru shouted, backing away from you, as if Gojo’s words were physical blows. 

His chest heaved, his breath shallow as panic surged through him. 

He stumbled to his feet, shaking his head in disbelief, refusing to accept what had just happened.

“No, I didn’t—she’s not—she’s still alive!”

Gojo’s pained gaze flickered to your still form, and in that instant, Suguru knew—he couldn’t stay. 

Not with Gojo there. Not with the full weight of his crime pressing down on him. He turned on his heel, his heart hammering in his chest as he muttered incoherent apologies to the air, his mind fractured and overwhelmed.

Without another word, Suguru bolted from the room, his footsteps echoing in the hollow silence. 

Gojo didn’t move—he couldn’t. Not yet. Not when your life hung in the balance.

The room fell into a suffocating quiet, the remnants of your final plea still echoing in the air.

There weren’t many thoughts going through Gojo’s head as he carried your lifeless body back to Jujutsy High, just one—he had lost his two best friends that night.

—

5 Days Later

Suguru had recruited a few curse users since his incident with you and Gojo at the temple. He had managed to knock you out so Gojo wouldn’t be able to stick around and kill him, he couldn’t afford to delay his plans. Or so he convinced himself.

One evening, he was approached by two girls he had adopted, Nanako and Mimiko, who claimed to have news from Jujutsu High, as they were responsible for gaining intel from the school to keep tabs. 

“Let's hear it. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for you girls,” He said softly, a warm smile playing on his lips as the two girls sat beside him. 

“Not at all, Mr. Geto.” Mimiko said taking out a piece of paper from her pocket to read some bullet points, written in glitter gel pens. 

“Um, no one is making any real progress on tracking you down, probably because they’re all idiots,” she said, rolling her eyes. Suguru let out a small chuckle.

“Well that’s good news, anything else?” He said, that same smile plastered on his face.

“Oh yeah, that girl sorcerer you fought with is dead, what was her name? Ummmmm, oh yeah! Y/n y/l/n!” 

Suguru’s entire body went rigid, the casual warmth that had coloured his voice just moments ago draining in an instant. His heart seized in his chest as Mimiko’s words echoed in his ears.

‘Y/n y/l/n… dead.’

“No,” he muttered, his voice strained and barely audible as the room seemed to tilt around him. 

“That’s impossible. I—” He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. 

“I just knocked her unconscious… I didn’t—” His words trailed off, his mind spiralling back to that moment, to the look in your eyes as his cursed spirit wrapped around your neck.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt her. I didn’t mean to…’

“Yeah,” Nanako added, her tone indifferent as she glanced at the paper. “That doctor lady’s  report said her neck was broken—shattered, actually. Sounds like there was nothing they could do. She died instantly.”

Suguru’s breath hitched in his throat, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe. 

His mind raced back to that final moment, your whispered words replaying in his head over and over again. ‘I will—always love—you.’

‘How had it come to this? How had he let it happen?’

His hands trembled as he gripped the edge of the table, trying to steady himself, but the world was slipping through his fingers. 

He hadn’t meant to kill you. He didn’t want that. He had only wanted to stop you—stop you from siding with Gojo. Stop you from leaving him, like everyone else had. 

But now… Now you’re gone.

“Mr. Geto?” Mimiko’s soft voice attempted to pull him out of his thoughts, but it did nothing to soothe the storm that raged inside him. 

He couldn’t hear her. He could barely hear anything but the blood rushing in his ears, the distant echo of your last breath.

He stood abruptly, pushing away from the table, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. Both girls flinched, their eyes widening in confusion as they watched his usually composed demeanour unravel.

“Mr. Geto?” Nanako called out again, her voice small.

But Suguru wasn’t listening anymore. He turned away, his mind a tangled mess of disbelief and horror. 

He had to get out—out of this room, out of this suffocating realization that he had killed the one person who had loved him enough to try to save him.

His chest heaved as he stumbled toward the door, his vision blurring at the edges. The air felt too thick, too hot, and for the first time in years, 

Suguru Geto felt like he was drowning. 

‘I killed my beautiful y/n…’ The thought reverberated like a haunting mantra, suffocating him from the inside.

He barely registered the sound of the girls calling after him as he staggered outside, cold night air hitting his skin but doing little to calm the chaos inside him. 

Suguru collapsed to his knees, his breath ragged, his hands clutching at his head as if he could somehow block out the reality of what he had done. 

The tears came, unbidden, hot and stinging, falling freely down his face as he let out a broken, anguished sob.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. 

“Y/n…” he whispered into the cold night air, his voice shattered. “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

But it was too late. He had chosen the dark side…

The world he sought to create, one where the weak no longer suffered, now felt more hollow than ever.

And all that remained was the bitter taste of regret, the price of his ambition.

[simplygojo]

Friend-Of-A-Friend ⸺ Chapter Ten

author's note ⸺ hey GANG I hope ur all doing well! Tysm for all the messages I actually LOVEEE yapping with u so pls don’t stop…also I have posted the dates of the upcoming chapters on the series master list if you’re interested hehe >.< pairing ⸺ Suguru Geto x Reader content ⸺ corporate-worker!reader, emotional tension, modern au, the good-ole-days trope, reader uses female pronouns, smoking mentioned(weed + cigs), reader is being spontaneous... taglist at end, 4.2k, this is an 18+ series - mdni

divider credit: @/toastray ୨୧ art credit: @/juziluohai

previous chapter ୨୧ series masterlist ୨୧ next chapter

You hadn’t meant to ignore him. Not really. But somehow, two days had passed without a response.

Monday night, you’d fallen asleep embarrassingly early—half-dressed and on top of the covers, one arm still crooked over your eyes.

And Tuesday…Tuesday was one of those days that just swallowed you whole and drained your social battery. Work was nonstop, your inbox a mess, and you’d ended up meeting your parents for dinner because they happened to be in town. 

Since moving out to the city after graduating, you’d often felt caught between places—never exactly out of place, but never fully settled either. 

It was like living in a space that was both familiar and somehow off, a quiet dissonance you couldn’t quite name. 

You missed home, sure, but when you visited, it didn’t feel quite the same anymore. The last while, that feeling of being “home” seemed just out of reach to you.

Nevertheless, you had a good night with your parents. The night ended with wine, too much laughter, a weirdly long hug from your mother, and a slow walk back to your place in shoes that weren’t built for walking.

By the time you’d made it upstairs, peeled off your clothes, and washed your face, it was already too late—and you didn’t want to open the message again.

Didn’t want to see his name glowing up at you like that. 

Not when you didn’t know what to say. Not when the weight of not saying anything had grown legs and learned to sit in your chest like it paid rent.

And now it was Wednesday.

You stepped out of the mirror-lined elevator, one hand trailing down the front of your coat as the doors sighed shut behind you. 

You stepped out of the mirror-lined elevator, one hand trailing down the front of your coat as the doors sighed shut behind you. 

The hallway greeted you with its usual hush, carpet soft beneath your shoes, the scent of fresh coffee already curling in the air. It was an ordinary morning, in theory.

Your cubicle looked the same as always—chair slightly askew, two pens missing from your holder, a yellow sticky note curling at the edge like it couldn’t be bothered to stay attached. You dropped your bag onto the floor, shrugged off your coat, and sank into the chair with a sigh that came from somewhere deep.

And then you pulled out your phone.

Enough was enough. You were so over the weird limbo of waiting to text him back. So over tiptoeing around a conversation that already had one foot in the door.

You knew exactly what to send him.

Without letting yourself overthink it, you opened Spotify. Thumb steady now, you scrolled down until you found it—the playlist. That playlist. The one you’d made in a different version of your life, with soft evenings and quiet corners baked into every track.

You tapped the three dots.

Selected Share.

Copied link.

Then you flicked over to your messages app. Suguru’s name was still there, second from the top, bolded. That last message staring back at you.

You pressed it open. Pasted the link into the text bar and pressed send.

You locked your phone without another thought and placed it face-down on your desk, like that might stop the ripple it sent through your chest.

Somewhere outside your cubicle, the printer sputtered to life. Phones rang. The world went on.

You had barely taken a sip of your coffee when your phone buzzed.

Once.

Then again.

The screen lit up with his name.

Geto: Wow. Another soul sliver, I see?

Geto: Now I’ve got something worthwhile to listen to while pretending to work. thanks

Your hand stayed still on the desk for a moment, fingers curled loosely around the mug. Heat pressed against your palm, but your attention didn’t move from the screen.

A small shift behind your ribs—tight, quiet.

The tiniest pull at one side of your mouth as your thumb lifted.

You: Don’t act like you weren’t waiting for it.

He was typing before your message even cleared the screen.

Geto: I wasn’t.

Geto: I’d accepted the silent treatment as my fate.

Geto: This is unexpected.

Your jaw moved slightly, a bite pressing down in the inside of your cheek. Not hard. Just enough.

You: Well…you're welcome for the emotional enrichment

Geto: Real generous of you…

Geto: I’ll take my time—can’t go burning through a whole soul-sliver at once.

Geto: Not every guy gets access like this, after all…

You let your phone rest on the desk for a beat, screen angled just enough that you could still see it. Across the room, someone dropped a stack of papers. The hum of the copy machine clicked on and off. A slice of laughter from the break room cut through, then faded.

Your thumb ran along the edge of the phone once, slow.

Then the last message arrived.

Geto: What are you doing after work?

There it was.

No punctuation. No build-up. Just weight, landing soft.

The tension that had held you upright all morning shifted. Not gone—but different now. Redistributed. Heavier in your hands. Lighter between your shoulders. 

Your posture didn’t change, but something underneath it did.

Picking up the phone, you answered honestly. 

Picking up the phone, you answered honestly.

You: Normally I’d say nothing.

You: But the last few days have been non-stop…I think I just need a night in.

You watched the bubble shift to “Delivered,” then locked the screen again, phone flat beside your keyboard.

A few minutes passed like that. No response.

You started working through your inbox—subject lines blending into each other, everything flagged as urgent when it wasn’t. Your fingers moved on autopilot, skimming, archiving, drafting. At some point you picked up your mug again, but the coffee had gone cold.

Your eyes drifted back to your phone more than once.

Maybe you’d read the tone wrong. Or maybe it didn’t mean anything to begin with.

You weren’t even sure why you were still thinking about it.

Then your screen lit up again.

Geto: Totally fair but

Geto: Any chance you want company anyway? You know I’m pretty quiet.

Geto: Thai food on me??

You didn’t answer right away.

There was a quiet kind of intention in the way he phrased it. No pressure, no expectation—just laid out with that offhand tone he always used. 

But Suguru wasn’t someone who invited himself over. He valued his space, liked to get use out of it. So for him to invite himself over on a random Wednesday—easy, but deliberate—landed heavier than it looked.

Your eyes traced the words twice. A warmth stirred in your chest—not giddy, not flustered. Just steady. Like something settling into place.

You: Okay fine, only if you know a place that actually puts flavour in their khao soi…

Geto: Do you even have to ask…I’ll bring the good stuff

You: Okay. Door’s open after 7 :)

Geto: Noted. I’ll knock anyway

Geto: Feels rude not to

You set your phone down, but didn’t look away from it right away.

Somewhere beyond the fabric of your cubicle wall, your manager’s voice called out a reminder for the 10:30 client call—half-chipper, half-stressed. Another email dropped into your inbox a beat later, its notification blinking in the corner of your screen. 

The overhead lights buzzed faintly, casting a washed-out glow across your desk, soft against the backs of your hands.

You dragged your chair in closer, fingers moving to the trackpad as you pulled up your briefing notes for the day. Line items. Status updates. A spreadsheet you'd updated three times this week already. Your cursor hovered, then moved with purpose. 

The first few slides needed cleaning up. 

A title needed shortening. Someone had left a comment in red that didn’t even make sense.

You got to work.

The rhythm came back slowly—scroll, revise, adjust spacing, add bullet points. Fingers tapping into a groove that didn’t ask for much thought. The shape of the day began to reassemble itself around you, familiar and structured. Your breathing levelled out.

But even in the middle of that—beneath the sharp clicks of your keyboard and the low hum of someone’s phone call two desks over—something still stirred just beneath your ribs.

You adjusted a chart. Added a footnote. Reworded a sentence that didn’t need fixing. Then glanced at the time.

Only 9:23.

You exhaled slowly through your nose and clicked into the next slide.

But it kept happening. Every few minutes, your eyes flicked back to the bottom-right corner of the screen. 

9:33…9:41… 9:53…10:07…get a grip…

Your coffee had gone cold by then. You didn’t get up for a new one. Just sat there, staring at bullet points you couldn’t remember writing, watching the cursor blink on an empty line like it had something to say.

Your mind wouldn’t stay put.

It kept folding back to him—soft and uninvited. It felt like a damn fly that just won't stop landing on you.

His voice in your head again: dry, amused, a little too smooth for how offhanded he always pretended to be. 

You could still hear the way he said things—slightly under his breath, like you weren’t always supposed to catch it.

That night on your balcony drifted into view. The smoke. The silence between sentences. The mug with the space cat. 

The way he watched you when he thought you weren’t looking, but you were…Maybe he knew that and watched anyway, you didn't know.

He was quiet about it. Always had been. Not loud in the ways people usually tried to be with you.

No—he lingered.

And now, here he was again. Not even in the room, but still—lingering. Threaded into your morning like background static. Like something you’d left on by accident.

This is just like him—to hang around in your thoughts like this.

Unrushed. Comfortable. Like he had nowhere else to be.

You minimized the briefing deck, reopened your inbox.

There was still half a day ahead of you. A call to prep for. Notes to clean up. Three emails flagged “urgent” that clearly weren’t they never were.

But under all of it—beneath the noise and the deadlines and the digital clutter—one thing sat clear and steady:

He was coming over to your apartment.

And your stomach wouldn’t stop catching on that fact.

Not nerves. Not panic.

Just something sharper than anticipation. A weightless little knot at the center of your chest, tugging every so often. Quiet. Persistent.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

The day had really turned around for you.

It started small—your inbox clearing faster than expected, the 10:30 call going smoothly, even the printer working on the first try. 

And then, right before you left, your favourite coworker who wasn’t in for a few days handed you a loaf of fresh sourdough, wrapped in wax paper and still faintly warm.

“Made an extra,” she said. “Thought you could use it.”

You didn’t argue.

Now, riding the subway home, the bread sat tucked in your tote, rosemary and salt lingering faintly in the air. 

You stood near the center pole, one hand curled around the metal, the other resting lightly on the strap of your bag. The car wasn’t crowded, but full enough that the space buzzed with soft movement—shoulders shifting, someone clearing their throat, the distant tinny bleed of someone’s music through their headphones.

The train rocked gently beneath your feet. Your weight adjusted with it, knees bending instinctively at each turn.

Your eyes moved without really seeing—past the ads, the streaked windows, the scrolling station names overhead.

Your phone was still in your pocket. No new messages. But it didn’t bother you this time. That quiet, steady feeling was still there—somewhere low in your stomach. Not jittery. Not uncertain. Just a kind of slow, warm anticipation.

You’d said yes. He was coming over.

And for the first time in a while, something about that felt simple.

Not easy, maybe. But uncomplicated. No second-guessing. Just something waiting at the end of the day.

The train slowed. You looked up.

Two more stops.

And then the walk home.

And then him.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

The lock clicked shut behind you, soft and familiar, and you let your keys drop into the bowl by the door with a sound that always marked the end of the day. Your apartment greeted you the way it always did—dim, quiet, a little cool from the window you’d cracked that morning for air.

You moved automatically. Shoes off. Coat shrugged down your arms. Work bag unshouldered and dropped by the couch, its usual resting place like muscle memory. But before you even made it that far, you stopped in the kitchen and unzipped your tote.

The loaf came out last—wax paper warm against your fingers, scent of rosemary and salt unfurling like it had been waiting. 

You stood there a moment, hand still resting beside it.

Then you sighed, turned toward the hallway.

Your reflection caught you off guard as you passed the mirror.

Nothing major—just the slight smudge at the outer edge of your eyeliner, the way your foundation had begun to settle around your nose. Your lipstick, barely there now. A long day’s worth of wear.

You paused.

Most nights, you’d wash your face the second you got home. Hair up, makeup off, cleanser and cool water with a clean, blank feeling afterward.

But tonight…you hesitated.

Suguru was coming over.

And that meant something. Even if it wasn’t a thing, exactly. Even if you weren’t calling it anything. Even if the whole thing was wrapped in casual words and nonchalance and Thai food.

Still. He was coming over.

Your fingers lingered near your temple. Not to fix anything. Just thinking.

It would be easy to leave it on. Just in case. Just to keep that tiny layer of armour. Lip balm, a little colour, a softened line around the eye—something to catch the low kitchen light a certain way.

You stared at yourself a beat longer.

But then you shook your head—small, firm. Almost amused with yourself.

No.

He’s seen you without makeup before. Plenty of times. 

Late movie nights with Gojo. Sunday mornings when you forgot to care. After swimming. After crying. 

Suguru had been there more times than you cared to notice until now.

This wasn’t new. You didn’t owe him a version of you polished at the edges.

You turned the bathroom light on, pulled your hair back, and began your usual routine. Cleanser, water, rinse. The feeling of a soft towel pressed to your face. Your skin underneath felt cooler now. Clean. Unhidden.

You stood there for a moment longer, fingers still damp against the edge of the sink. 

Then, without giving yourself time to overthink it, you peeled your clothes off—layer by layer—and stepped into the shower.

It wasn’t about being presentable.

It was about the day sliding off you, down the drain with the heat and the steam and the tension that had wound itself around your shoulders. You stood under the water until your muscles started to uncoil, until the thoughts quieted, until you could feel yourself again.

No scrubbing. No ritual. Just warmth on your back and a moment to exhale.

You dried off slowly. Pulled on something soft and worn—cotton against clean skin—and padded barefoot back to the mirror.

After smoothing on a fresh layer of moisturizer, you then reached for the one thing you never skipped—your tinted lip balm. 

Not makeup, not really. Just a touch of colour, and you used it religiously—if you could afford to buy one hundred tubes of it, you would.

A final step. A signal that the day was done, and you were back in your body again.

And when you stepped back into the hallway, you didn’t look in the mirror again.

You had no reason to impress him.

And besides—he was already coming over. Just as a friend.

Just as Suguru.

You moved through the apartment in slow, familiar steps, the quiet after the shower settling over you.

In the bedroom, you changed into something casual—comfortable enough to feel like yourself. Nothing styled. Nothing planned. Just what you’d wear on any night in.

Back in the living room, you crossed to the shelf near the window and pulled out your incense tin. You picked a stick without thinking too hard—something light, familiar—and lit the end. After a few seconds, you blew it out, letting the smoke drift upward in slow, lazy curls.

The scent spread gently through the space, warm and steady.

You turned on the lamp beside the couch—soft light, easy on the eyes—and took a step back.

Everything felt still.

Not perfect. Not staged.

But ready.

You crossed to the kitchen, poured yourself a glass of water, and leaned back against the counter, letting the quiet settle a little deeper into your skin. The light from the lamp caught on the edge of the glass, refracting small, watery shapes onto the floor.

After a moment, you picked up your phone to check the time.

6:46.

Still early.

You were just about to set it back down when the screen lit up with a new message.

Geto: On my way

Another one followed almost instantly—a photo this time.

You tapped it open.

It was a quick, close shot: his hand holding a folded-over brown paper takeout bag, knuckles curled around the handles. The background was nothing—sidewalk, a bit of concrete, maybe his coat sleeve just barely in frame—but your eyes caught on the smallest details without meaning to.

The soft dip of veins along the inside of his wrist. The way his rings—two of them, one heavier-looking than the other—sat neatly at the base of his fingers. His nails were clean. His grip relaxed.

He had… nice hands.

You blinked, screen still glowing in your palm.

You hadn’t meant to notice, really. But the image lingered for a second longer than necessary before you locked your phone and set it down, a little slower this time.

The scent of incense still drifted through the room, sweet and woody. Outside, a car passed with its headlights skating across your blinds. You glanced toward the door without moving.

He’d be here any minute now, and you really hoped that he remembered your khao soi…

The apartment felt still, but your nerves had started to hum again—quiet, low..

You crossed back into the living room, picked up your phone again, and tapped it awake. Opened Spotify. 

Scrolled past the ones you usually kept to yourself—the sad ones, the overthought ones—and settled on the playlist you’d made without any real theme. Just the kind of music that made the room feel like yours.

You connected to the speaker tucked on the shelf and turned the volume down low. Just enough to soften the silence.

The first track floated in, slow and steady. The kind of sound that felt like a room you wanted to stay in. Something with a soft beat, warm vocals, nothing that asked for too much attention.

You let it play. Let it settle.

Then you crossed to the couch and straightened the throw without thinking. Tucked a stray slipper under the edge of the coffee table. Wiped a nonexistent crumb from the counter.

And before you could check the time again—there it was. A knock.

Not loud. Not rushed.

Just two quiet taps, measured and certain.

He was early.

You didn’t move at first. Not startled—just still. Like something had clicked into place a beat sooner than expected. A flicker of something low in your chest, not quite nerves, not quite thrill. Just there.

A breath caught in your throat. You let it go. Then moved.

You crossed the floor, your socks making your steps soundless on the rug, and paused with your hand on the doorknob. 

You opened the door, and there he was.

Suguru stood there, completely oblivious that he just sent your stomach into a full somersault ten minutes ago. 

Jacket open, one hand tucked into the pocket of his jeans, the other holding the takeout bag by its twisted paper handles. The warm scent of curry and lemongrass drifted up between you, carried in on the quiet of the hallway.

His eyes flicked up to meet yours. Calm, unreadable, but steady.

“Hi,” he said, voice low. Almost too casual. Like this wasn’t something. Like this was normal.

Your fingers tightened slightly around the doorknob. “You’re early.”

His mouth pulled at one corner—not quite a smile, but close enough to make your pulse skip. “Couldn’t help it. The place was faster than I thought.”

He stepped past you without needing permission, brushing by in a way that left the faintest trail of his cologne in the air—clean, a little woodsy, something familiar now. The door clicked shut behind him as you turned.

He dropped the bag on the counter, casual, already at home in the space.

You caught yourself watching the way his hand moved—how the veins in his wrist shifted as he let go of the handle, how the silver rings on his fingers caught the low kitchen light. 

There was something absurdly specific about it. The easy way his fingers flexed. The way they looked as if they’d been sculpted with quiet intention.

You looked away.

He glanced around once, slow. Took in the low lighting, the haze of incense smoke curling from the windowsill, the soft music still murmuring from the speaker before his gaze found yours once again.

“You went full ambience,” he said, voice low. Almost amused.

“Don’t act surprised. I like it when my place feels like mine. Always been a big decorator… don't you remember my place at school?”

There was a pause—quiet but not empty. You watched his expression shift, subtle as always. A small crease appeared between his brows, like the memory had come faster than he expected. Like it caught him a little off guard.

“Your old place…” he said, voice lower now. “Yeah. This feels the same.”

His eyes moved slowly around the room again, but you could tell he wasn’t really looking at the walls or the incense or the books. 

He was remembering something else. Maybe the cracked window frame in your university apartment that you simply never fixed. Maybe the crooked shelf you insisted on keeping there as a ‘happy accident’. Or maybe you, sitting cross-legged on a thrifted couch, light from the hallway bending around you.

He looked back at you.

“Feels like you.”

Then he nodded once, like that was answer enough, and turned to tear the tape off the bag. “Hope you’re still into spicy food. I didn’t hold back.”

“Bold of you,” you said, walking over, “assuming I’ve gone weak in the time we’ve been apart.”

“Mmm. Could never picture that,” he replied without looking up.

You watched as he pulled out a few plastic containers, setting them side by side. And your eyes were locked in on your khao soi, which was smelling ever so fragrant. He popped open a lid and peeked inside, making a small, approving noise. 

“Still hot.”

You grabbed two forks and two spoons from the drawer beside Suguru, handing one set over without thinking. 

Your hands brushed, briefly, the way they always seemed to lately—casual, but not quite forgettable.

Suguru stacked the warm containers in his arms and moved toward the living area. The fabric of his black sweatshirt shifted with him—soft-looking, slightly worn at the cuffs. 

His jeans hung low on his hips, baggy in that way that looked thoughtless but never quite careless, the denim faded in places which made them seem more lived in. He crouched beside the low table, setting the containers down with a soft thud before lowering himself to the rug. 

Cross-legged, back loose against the couch, one arm draped over his knee—comfortable, effortless. 

He looked good like that. Familiar. 

A little too easy to look at.

“Should we use plates?” You said, watching him from the kitchen.

Suguru shrugged with a sly grin, tilting his head like it was the most obvious logic in the world.

“I mean, there’s a first time for everything,” he said, deadpan. “But why waste clean dishes when the containers are already doing the heavy lifting?” 

You smiled, shaking your head as if amused by the effortless ease of his logic. “Yeah,” you said quietly, “that sounds about right.”

It felt so natural, this back-and-forth, the kind of simple comfort of his presence you didn’t realize you’d missed. Normally, you avoided people when you were drained—too tired to carry any weight but your own—but if there was one person who never took from your well, it was Suguru.

Your eyes met his for a moment, and there was no need to say it out loud. You both understood.

With a small, knowing smile, you settled down across from him on the floor, the warm scent of the Thai aromas filling the space between you. The room felt softer somehow—like the quiet in between storms, safe and familiar.

And just like that, you were home again.

taglist ⸺ @killak9mi; @nikilig; @pinkhoneydrop; @armfloaties; @sat-hoe-ru; @kaqua; @rriwyu; @erenspersonalwh0re; @dishs0pe; @rwirxles; @yourname-exee; @pyruvic; @marianaz; @you-transfix-me; @simplyyyuji; @zoldyi; @linaaeatsfamilies; @anuncalledbridge; @aseqan; @starmapz; @nina-from-317; @kang-ulzzang; @hashahasha; @maybe-a-bi-witch; @zeunys; @pandabiene5115; @shibataimu; @enchantinghonymoon; @gradmacoco; @re-tired-succubus; @aspiring-bookworm; @idkidk32; @paintedperidot; @yourfavbabigirl; @tellria; @ruby-dubydu; @susanhill; @arabellasolstice; @getosshampoo; @xoxoblueyy; @bxnfire; @ayumilk; @hanatsuki-hime; @aldebrana; @jomijase1622; @garden0fyves; @luvaerina; @clearalienjudgeartisan; @smskhee; @vertigoswan; @blackstxnszz; @getoe1s; @goonforgeto; **please note: if your name is striked out, that means I was unable to tag you, please check your settings if you'd like to be tagged**

[simplygojo]

IM DEAD THIS IS SO AMAZING

Too much to handle....

[simplygojo]

hes so breedable WHAT who said that

[simplygojo]

Aaaahhsjdjjdjdjdjjahjaodb I am sorry I feel like I swallowed a hanger, I can’t stop smiling. The build up is too good . One heck of a writer you are. Also Suguru is as hot as always.

AHAHAHAH I "SWALLOWED A HANGER" IM DEADDDDDD.

IM HAPPY YOU LIKE MY SERIES FOAF I HAVE BEEN PUTTING MY WHOLE BADUSSY INTO IT <333

I literally smile and kick my feet while writing this series LIKE NWEJCCFOW-

[simplygojo]

stop I love this <3

Pairing: Toji Fushiguro x f!Reader

Summary: Toji finally meets his son for the first time, and he isn't sure what to do.

Warnings: Fluff

Toji’s hands are shaky as he looks down at the little bean. That’s the nickname you gave him the moment you found out about him, and here he is. So frail and weak, Toji can’t hold him yet. What if he hurts the baby?

The man looks at you for reassurance, even when you can barely keep your eyes open. You’re tired.

“It’s okay, Toji.” You tell him, watching as he towers over the bassinet. He cut the umbilical cord but that’s as much as he’s done. He’s never been scared of fucking up like this before. It’s adorable from your point of view. “He’s much stronger than he looks.”

“Yeah, he looks pretty weak.” Toji awkwardly laughs, trying to mask his nerves. You end up chuckling as you prompt yourself up on the bed. You pick up the baby from the bassinet and coo at him. He’s peacefully sleeping.

“He’s just the cutest little bean.” You pitch your voice, looking down at your son. You then look at Toji, softly smiling before asking, “Why don’t you hold him?”

“I’ve never held a baby before.” He confesses, and you laugh yet again. That’s why you’re there to teach him– You also delivered the baby but that’s besides the point. You try to make space for Toji to sit, a difficult task considering his large size; just enough for him to not fall over.

“Come here.” You pat the space beside you, and he furrows his brows before following your order. You hand him the baby without thinking twice, forcing him to finally hold his son. He has no other option but to try now. He stares down at the baby, dumbfounded.

“Make sure to support his head.” You comment, completely missing Toji's lips quiver. You’re adjusting his arms, making sure the baby is held correctly. You’re too focused on the wrong things. You’re missing how Toji falls in love with the little bean.

Toji tries to take a deep breath, remembering that he can’t cry. He can’t be weak, not in front of you. But it’s hard to contain himself right now. Not when he’s finally getting something that he’s waited his whole life for– Something he didn’t even know he wanted.

“He’s so stupidly cute.” You hear his voice break, and you finally look to see the tears that have welled up in his eyes. They’re on the brink of spilling, but he manages to hold them back. He’ll do everything in his power to not cry though the task is increasingly hard.

“Aw, Toji.” You kiss his cheek as a bright smile comes to your lips. Toji’s eyes linger on the bean, in disbelief that this is his life. That little bean is his son.

Your head rests on his shoulder, eyes staring down at the baby. It took an entire day of hard labor, and nine months of discomfort, but your family is family complete.

“What do you want to name him?” You ask.

“Megumi.” He answers, a subtle smile coming to his lips as a singular tear falls. You wipe it away, quickly kissing the spot. It’s perfect– This, the name, everything. He affirms, “Megumi fits him.”

[simplygojo]

Friend-Of-A-Friend ⸺ Chapter Ten

author's note ⸺ hey GANG I hope ur all doing well! Tysm for all the messages I actually LOVEEE yapping with u so pls don’t stop…also I have posted the dates of the upcoming chapters on the series master list if you’re interested hehe >.< pairing ⸺ Suguru Geto x Reader content ⸺ corporate-worker!reader, emotional tension, modern au, the good-ole-days trope, reader uses female pronouns, smoking mentioned(weed + cigs), reader is being spontaneous... taglist at end, 4.2k, this is an 18+ series - mdni

divider credit: @/toastray ୨୧ art credit: @/juziluohai

previous chapter ୨୧ series masterlist ୨୧ next chapter

You hadn’t meant to ignore him. Not really. But somehow, two days had passed without a response.

Monday night, you’d fallen asleep embarrassingly early—half-dressed and on top of the covers, one arm still crooked over your eyes.

And Tuesday…Tuesday was one of those days that just swallowed you whole and drained your social battery. Work was nonstop, your inbox a mess, and you’d ended up meeting your parents for dinner because they happened to be in town. 

Since moving out to the city after graduating, you’d often felt caught between places—never exactly out of place, but never fully settled either. 

It was like living in a space that was both familiar and somehow off, a quiet dissonance you couldn’t quite name. 

You missed home, sure, but when you visited, it didn’t feel quite the same anymore. The last while, that feeling of being “home” seemed just out of reach to you.

Nevertheless, you had a good night with your parents. The night ended with wine, too much laughter, a weirdly long hug from your mother, and a slow walk back to your place in shoes that weren’t built for walking.

By the time you’d made it upstairs, peeled off your clothes, and washed your face, it was already too late—and you didn’t want to open the message again.

Didn’t want to see his name glowing up at you like that. 

Not when you didn’t know what to say. Not when the weight of not saying anything had grown legs and learned to sit in your chest like it paid rent.

And now it was Wednesday.

You stepped out of the mirror-lined elevator, one hand trailing down the front of your coat as the doors sighed shut behind you. 

You stepped out of the mirror-lined elevator, one hand trailing down the front of your coat as the doors sighed shut behind you. 

The hallway greeted you with its usual hush, carpet soft beneath your shoes, the scent of fresh coffee already curling in the air. It was an ordinary morning, in theory.

Your cubicle looked the same as always—chair slightly askew, two pens missing from your holder, a yellow sticky note curling at the edge like it couldn’t be bothered to stay attached. You dropped your bag onto the floor, shrugged off your coat, and sank into the chair with a sigh that came from somewhere deep.

And then you pulled out your phone.

Enough was enough. You were so over the weird limbo of waiting to text him back. So over tiptoeing around a conversation that already had one foot in the door.

You knew exactly what to send him.

Without letting yourself overthink it, you opened Spotify. Thumb steady now, you scrolled down until you found it—the playlist. That playlist. The one you’d made in a different version of your life, with soft evenings and quiet corners baked into every track.

You tapped the three dots.

Selected Share.

Copied link.

Then you flicked over to your messages app. Suguru’s name was still there, second from the top, bolded. That last message staring back at you.

You pressed it open. Pasted the link into the text bar and pressed send.

You locked your phone without another thought and placed it face-down on your desk, like that might stop the ripple it sent through your chest.

Somewhere outside your cubicle, the printer sputtered to life. Phones rang. The world went on.

You had barely taken a sip of your coffee when your phone buzzed.

Once.

Then again.

The screen lit up with his name.

Geto: Wow. Another soul sliver, I see?

Geto: Now I’ve got something worthwhile to listen to while pretending to work. thanks

Your hand stayed still on the desk for a moment, fingers curled loosely around the mug. Heat pressed against your palm, but your attention didn’t move from the screen.

A small shift behind your ribs—tight, quiet.

The tiniest pull at one side of your mouth as your thumb lifted.

You: Don’t act like you weren’t waiting for it.

He was typing before your message even cleared the screen.

Geto: I wasn’t.

Geto: I’d accepted the silent treatment as my fate.

Geto: This is unexpected.

Your jaw moved slightly, a bite pressing down in the inside of your cheek. Not hard. Just enough.

You: Well…you're welcome for the emotional enrichment

Geto: Real generous of you…

Geto: I’ll take my time—can’t go burning through a whole soul-sliver at once.

Geto: Not every guy gets access like this, after all…

You let your phone rest on the desk for a beat, screen angled just enough that you could still see it. Across the room, someone dropped a stack of papers. The hum of the copy machine clicked on and off. A slice of laughter from the break room cut through, then faded.

Your thumb ran along the edge of the phone once, slow.

Then the last message arrived.

Geto: What are you doing after work?

There it was.

No punctuation. No build-up. Just weight, landing soft.

The tension that had held you upright all morning shifted. Not gone—but different now. Redistributed. Heavier in your hands. Lighter between your shoulders. 

Your posture didn’t change, but something underneath it did.

Picking up the phone, you answered honestly. 

Picking up the phone, you answered honestly.

You: Normally I’d say nothing.

You: But the last few days have been non-stop…I think I just need a night in.

You watched the bubble shift to “Delivered,” then locked the screen again, phone flat beside your keyboard.

A few minutes passed like that. No response.

You started working through your inbox—subject lines blending into each other, everything flagged as urgent when it wasn’t. Your fingers moved on autopilot, skimming, archiving, drafting. At some point you picked up your mug again, but the coffee had gone cold.

Your eyes drifted back to your phone more than once.

Maybe you’d read the tone wrong. Or maybe it didn’t mean anything to begin with.

You weren’t even sure why you were still thinking about it.

Then your screen lit up again.

Geto: Totally fair but

Geto: Any chance you want company anyway? You know I’m pretty quiet.

Geto: Thai food on me??

You didn’t answer right away.

There was a quiet kind of intention in the way he phrased it. No pressure, no expectation—just laid out with that offhand tone he always used. 

But Suguru wasn’t someone who invited himself over. He valued his space, liked to get use out of it. So for him to invite himself over on a random Wednesday—easy, but deliberate—landed heavier than it looked.

Your eyes traced the words twice. A warmth stirred in your chest—not giddy, not flustered. Just steady. Like something settling into place.

You: Okay fine, only if you know a place that actually puts flavour in their khao soi…

Geto: Do you even have to ask…I’ll bring the good stuff

You: Okay. Door’s open after 7 :)

Geto: Noted. I’ll knock anyway

Geto: Feels rude not to

You set your phone down, but didn’t look away from it right away.

Somewhere beyond the fabric of your cubicle wall, your manager’s voice called out a reminder for the 10:30 client call—half-chipper, half-stressed. Another email dropped into your inbox a beat later, its notification blinking in the corner of your screen. 

The overhead lights buzzed faintly, casting a washed-out glow across your desk, soft against the backs of your hands.

You dragged your chair in closer, fingers moving to the trackpad as you pulled up your briefing notes for the day. Line items. Status updates. A spreadsheet you'd updated three times this week already. Your cursor hovered, then moved with purpose. 

The first few slides needed cleaning up. 

A title needed shortening. Someone had left a comment in red that didn’t even make sense.

You got to work.

The rhythm came back slowly—scroll, revise, adjust spacing, add bullet points. Fingers tapping into a groove that didn’t ask for much thought. The shape of the day began to reassemble itself around you, familiar and structured. Your breathing levelled out.

But even in the middle of that—beneath the sharp clicks of your keyboard and the low hum of someone’s phone call two desks over—something still stirred just beneath your ribs.

You adjusted a chart. Added a footnote. Reworded a sentence that didn’t need fixing. Then glanced at the time.

Only 9:23.

You exhaled slowly through your nose and clicked into the next slide.

But it kept happening. Every few minutes, your eyes flicked back to the bottom-right corner of the screen. 

9:33…9:41… 9:53…10:07…get a grip…

Your coffee had gone cold by then. You didn’t get up for a new one. Just sat there, staring at bullet points you couldn’t remember writing, watching the cursor blink on an empty line like it had something to say.

Your mind wouldn’t stay put.

It kept folding back to him—soft and uninvited. It felt like a damn fly that just won't stop landing on you.

His voice in your head again: dry, amused, a little too smooth for how offhanded he always pretended to be. 

You could still hear the way he said things—slightly under his breath, like you weren’t always supposed to catch it.

That night on your balcony drifted into view. The smoke. The silence between sentences. The mug with the space cat. 

The way he watched you when he thought you weren’t looking, but you were…Maybe he knew that and watched anyway, you didn't know.

He was quiet about it. Always had been. Not loud in the ways people usually tried to be with you.

No—he lingered.

And now, here he was again. Not even in the room, but still—lingering. Threaded into your morning like background static. Like something you’d left on by accident.

This is just like him—to hang around in your thoughts like this.

Unrushed. Comfortable. Like he had nowhere else to be.

You minimized the briefing deck, reopened your inbox.

There was still half a day ahead of you. A call to prep for. Notes to clean up. Three emails flagged “urgent” that clearly weren’t they never were.

But under all of it—beneath the noise and the deadlines and the digital clutter—one thing sat clear and steady:

He was coming over to your apartment.

And your stomach wouldn’t stop catching on that fact.

Not nerves. Not panic.

Just something sharper than anticipation. A weightless little knot at the center of your chest, tugging every so often. Quiet. Persistent.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

The day had really turned around for you.

It started small—your inbox clearing faster than expected, the 10:30 call going smoothly, even the printer working on the first try. 

And then, right before you left, your favourite coworker who wasn’t in for a few days handed you a loaf of fresh sourdough, wrapped in wax paper and still faintly warm.

“Made an extra,” she said. “Thought you could use it.”

You didn’t argue.

Now, riding the subway home, the bread sat tucked in your tote, rosemary and salt lingering faintly in the air. 

You stood near the center pole, one hand curled around the metal, the other resting lightly on the strap of your bag. The car wasn’t crowded, but full enough that the space buzzed with soft movement—shoulders shifting, someone clearing their throat, the distant tinny bleed of someone’s music through their headphones.

The train rocked gently beneath your feet. Your weight adjusted with it, knees bending instinctively at each turn.

Your eyes moved without really seeing—past the ads, the streaked windows, the scrolling station names overhead.

Your phone was still in your pocket. No new messages. But it didn’t bother you this time. That quiet, steady feeling was still there—somewhere low in your stomach. Not jittery. Not uncertain. Just a kind of slow, warm anticipation.

You’d said yes. He was coming over.

And for the first time in a while, something about that felt simple.

Not easy, maybe. But uncomplicated. No second-guessing. Just something waiting at the end of the day.

The train slowed. You looked up.

Two more stops.

And then the walk home.

And then him.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

The lock clicked shut behind you, soft and familiar, and you let your keys drop into the bowl by the door with a sound that always marked the end of the day. Your apartment greeted you the way it always did—dim, quiet, a little cool from the window you’d cracked that morning for air.

You moved automatically. Shoes off. Coat shrugged down your arms. Work bag unshouldered and dropped by the couch, its usual resting place like muscle memory. But before you even made it that far, you stopped in the kitchen and unzipped your tote.

The loaf came out last—wax paper warm against your fingers, scent of rosemary and salt unfurling like it had been waiting. 

You stood there a moment, hand still resting beside it.

Then you sighed, turned toward the hallway.

Your reflection caught you off guard as you passed the mirror.

Nothing major—just the slight smudge at the outer edge of your eyeliner, the way your foundation had begun to settle around your nose. Your lipstick, barely there now. A long day’s worth of wear.

You paused.

Most nights, you’d wash your face the second you got home. Hair up, makeup off, cleanser and cool water with a clean, blank feeling afterward.

But tonight…you hesitated.

Suguru was coming over.

And that meant something. Even if it wasn’t a thing, exactly. Even if you weren’t calling it anything. Even if the whole thing was wrapped in casual words and nonchalance and Thai food.

Still. He was coming over.

Your fingers lingered near your temple. Not to fix anything. Just thinking.

It would be easy to leave it on. Just in case. Just to keep that tiny layer of armour. Lip balm, a little colour, a softened line around the eye—something to catch the low kitchen light a certain way.

You stared at yourself a beat longer.

But then you shook your head—small, firm. Almost amused with yourself.

No.

He’s seen you without makeup before. Plenty of times. 

Late movie nights with Gojo. Sunday mornings when you forgot to care. After swimming. After crying. 

Suguru had been there more times than you cared to notice until now.

This wasn’t new. You didn’t owe him a version of you polished at the edges.

You turned the bathroom light on, pulled your hair back, and began your usual routine. Cleanser, water, rinse. The feeling of a soft towel pressed to your face. Your skin underneath felt cooler now. Clean. Unhidden.

You stood there for a moment longer, fingers still damp against the edge of the sink. 

Then, without giving yourself time to overthink it, you peeled your clothes off—layer by layer—and stepped into the shower.

It wasn’t about being presentable.

It was about the day sliding off you, down the drain with the heat and the steam and the tension that had wound itself around your shoulders. You stood under the water until your muscles started to uncoil, until the thoughts quieted, until you could feel yourself again.

No scrubbing. No ritual. Just warmth on your back and a moment to exhale.

You dried off slowly. Pulled on something soft and worn—cotton against clean skin—and padded barefoot back to the mirror.

After smoothing on a fresh layer of moisturizer, you then reached for the one thing you never skipped—your tinted lip balm. 

Not makeup, not really. Just a touch of colour, and you used it religiously—if you could afford to buy one hundred tubes of it, you would.

A final step. A signal that the day was done, and you were back in your body again.

And when you stepped back into the hallway, you didn’t look in the mirror again.

You had no reason to impress him.

And besides—he was already coming over. Just as a friend.

Just as Suguru.

You moved through the apartment in slow, familiar steps, the quiet after the shower settling over you.

In the bedroom, you changed into something casual—comfortable enough to feel like yourself. Nothing styled. Nothing planned. Just what you’d wear on any night in.

Back in the living room, you crossed to the shelf near the window and pulled out your incense tin. You picked a stick without thinking too hard—something light, familiar—and lit the end. After a few seconds, you blew it out, letting the smoke drift upward in slow, lazy curls.

The scent spread gently through the space, warm and steady.

You turned on the lamp beside the couch—soft light, easy on the eyes—and took a step back.

Everything felt still.

Not perfect. Not staged.

But ready.

You crossed to the kitchen, poured yourself a glass of water, and leaned back against the counter, letting the quiet settle a little deeper into your skin. The light from the lamp caught on the edge of the glass, refracting small, watery shapes onto the floor.

After a moment, you picked up your phone to check the time.

6:46.

Still early.

You were just about to set it back down when the screen lit up with a new message.

Geto: On my way

Another one followed almost instantly—a photo this time.

You tapped it open.

It was a quick, close shot: his hand holding a folded-over brown paper takeout bag, knuckles curled around the handles. The background was nothing—sidewalk, a bit of concrete, maybe his coat sleeve just barely in frame—but your eyes caught on the smallest details without meaning to.

The soft dip of veins along the inside of his wrist. The way his rings—two of them, one heavier-looking than the other—sat neatly at the base of his fingers. His nails were clean. His grip relaxed.

He had… nice hands.

You blinked, screen still glowing in your palm.

You hadn’t meant to notice, really. But the image lingered for a second longer than necessary before you locked your phone and set it down, a little slower this time.

The scent of incense still drifted through the room, sweet and woody. Outside, a car passed with its headlights skating across your blinds. You glanced toward the door without moving.

He’d be here any minute now, and you really hoped that he remembered your khao soi…

The apartment felt still, but your nerves had started to hum again—quiet, low..

You crossed back into the living room, picked up your phone again, and tapped it awake. Opened Spotify. 

Scrolled past the ones you usually kept to yourself—the sad ones, the overthought ones—and settled on the playlist you’d made without any real theme. Just the kind of music that made the room feel like yours.

You connected to the speaker tucked on the shelf and turned the volume down low. Just enough to soften the silence.

The first track floated in, slow and steady. The kind of sound that felt like a room you wanted to stay in. Something with a soft beat, warm vocals, nothing that asked for too much attention.

You let it play. Let it settle.

Then you crossed to the couch and straightened the throw without thinking. Tucked a stray slipper under the edge of the coffee table. Wiped a nonexistent crumb from the counter.

And before you could check the time again—there it was. A knock.

Not loud. Not rushed.

Just two quiet taps, measured and certain.

He was early.

You didn’t move at first. Not startled—just still. Like something had clicked into place a beat sooner than expected. A flicker of something low in your chest, not quite nerves, not quite thrill. Just there.

A breath caught in your throat. You let it go. Then moved.

You crossed the floor, your socks making your steps soundless on the rug, and paused with your hand on the doorknob. 

You opened the door, and there he was.

Suguru stood there, completely oblivious that he just sent your stomach into a full somersault ten minutes ago. 

Jacket open, one hand tucked into the pocket of his jeans, the other holding the takeout bag by its twisted paper handles. The warm scent of curry and lemongrass drifted up between you, carried in on the quiet of the hallway.

His eyes flicked up to meet yours. Calm, unreadable, but steady.

“Hi,” he said, voice low. Almost too casual. Like this wasn’t something. Like this was normal.

Your fingers tightened slightly around the doorknob. “You’re early.”

His mouth pulled at one corner—not quite a smile, but close enough to make your pulse skip. “Couldn’t help it. The place was faster than I thought.”

He stepped past you without needing permission, brushing by in a way that left the faintest trail of his cologne in the air—clean, a little woodsy, something familiar now. The door clicked shut behind him as you turned.

He dropped the bag on the counter, casual, already at home in the space.

You caught yourself watching the way his hand moved—how the veins in his wrist shifted as he let go of the handle, how the silver rings on his fingers caught the low kitchen light. 

There was something absurdly specific about it. The easy way his fingers flexed. The way they looked as if they’d been sculpted with quiet intention.

You looked away.

He glanced around once, slow. Took in the low lighting, the haze of incense smoke curling from the windowsill, the soft music still murmuring from the speaker before his gaze found yours once again.

“You went full ambience,” he said, voice low. Almost amused.

“Don’t act surprised. I like it when my place feels like mine. Always been a big decorator… don't you remember my place at school?”

There was a pause—quiet but not empty. You watched his expression shift, subtle as always. A small crease appeared between his brows, like the memory had come faster than he expected. Like it caught him a little off guard.

“Your old place…” he said, voice lower now. “Yeah. This feels the same.”

His eyes moved slowly around the room again, but you could tell he wasn’t really looking at the walls or the incense or the books. 

He was remembering something else. Maybe the cracked window frame in your university apartment that you simply never fixed. Maybe the crooked shelf you insisted on keeping there as a ‘happy accident’. Or maybe you, sitting cross-legged on a thrifted couch, light from the hallway bending around you.

He looked back at you.

“Feels like you.”

Then he nodded once, like that was answer enough, and turned to tear the tape off the bag. “Hope you’re still into spicy food. I didn’t hold back.”

“Bold of you,” you said, walking over, “assuming I’ve gone weak in the time we’ve been apart.”

“Mmm. Could never picture that,” he replied without looking up.

You watched as he pulled out a few plastic containers, setting them side by side. And your eyes were locked in on your khao soi, which was smelling ever so fragrant. He popped open a lid and peeked inside, making a small, approving noise. 

“Still hot.”

You grabbed two forks and two spoons from the drawer beside Suguru, handing one set over without thinking. 

Your hands brushed, briefly, the way they always seemed to lately—casual, but not quite forgettable.

Suguru stacked the warm containers in his arms and moved toward the living area. The fabric of his black sweatshirt shifted with him—soft-looking, slightly worn at the cuffs. 

His jeans hung low on his hips, baggy in that way that looked thoughtless but never quite careless, the denim faded in places which made them seem more lived in. He crouched beside the low table, setting the containers down with a soft thud before lowering himself to the rug. 

Cross-legged, back loose against the couch, one arm draped over his knee—comfortable, effortless. 

He looked good like that. Familiar. 

A little too easy to look at.

“Should we use plates?” You said, watching him from the kitchen.

Suguru shrugged with a sly grin, tilting his head like it was the most obvious logic in the world.

“I mean, there’s a first time for everything,” he said, deadpan. “But why waste clean dishes when the containers are already doing the heavy lifting?” 

You smiled, shaking your head as if amused by the effortless ease of his logic. “Yeah,” you said quietly, “that sounds about right.”

It felt so natural, this back-and-forth, the kind of simple comfort of his presence you didn’t realize you’d missed. Normally, you avoided people when you were drained—too tired to carry any weight but your own—but if there was one person who never took from your well, it was Suguru.

Your eyes met his for a moment, and there was no need to say it out loud. You both understood.

With a small, knowing smile, you settled down across from him on the floor, the warm scent of the Thai aromas filling the space between you. The room felt softer somehow—like the quiet in between storms, safe and familiar.

And just like that, you were home again.

taglist ⸺ @killak9mi; @nikilig; @pinkhoneydrop; @armfloaties; @sat-hoe-ru; @kaqua; @rriwyu; @erenspersonalwh0re; @dishs0pe; @rwirxles; @yourname-exee; @pyruvic; @marianaz; @you-transfix-me; @simplyyyuji; @zoldyi; @linaaeatsfamilies; @anuncalledbridge; @aseqan; @starmapz; @nina-from-317; @kang-ulzzang; @hashahasha; @maybe-a-bi-witch; @zeunys; @pandabiene5115; @shibataimu; @enchantinghonymoon; @gradmacoco; @re-tired-succubus; @aspiring-bookworm; @idkidk32; @paintedperidot; @yourfavbabigirl; @tellria; @ruby-dubydu; @susanhill; @arabellasolstice; @getosshampoo; @xoxoblueyy; @bxnfire; @ayumilk; @hanatsuki-hime; @aldebrana; @jomijase1622; @garden0fyves; @luvaerina; @clearalienjudgeartisan; @smskhee; @vertigoswan; @blackstxnszz; @getoe1s; @goonforgeto; **please note: if your name is striked out, that means I was unable to tag you, please check your settings if you'd like to be tagged**

[simplygojo]

SHE JUST LOVES TO STRES HER READERS OUT BUT IM SO EXCITED TO BE STRESSED I-

I can't believe I'm actually writing something again and excited about it LMFAOOOOOOOOO anyway STAY TUNED!!!!

[simplygojo]

your friend of a friend series has got me giggling and squealing,,, it feels so REAL and so reminiscent of how I felt irl when getting to know somebody! you captured that exact exact feeling and sensation perfectly!!! I cannot wait for more

HELLO HI SORRY I TOOK SO LONG

Thank you SOOO much for reaching out oh my lord your words are so kind I am MELTINGGGGGGG!! I'm so happy you're enjoying the series so far!! I am really excited for where the series is going from here and I love responding to asks like this <33

I HOPE U ARE DOING WELL AND ARE HEALTHY

[simplygojo]

Friend-Of-A-Friend ⸺ Chapter Nine

author's note ⸺ HEY Y'ALL I LIED LAST WEEK SORRYYYY!! Here is chapter nine...Sorry for the delayyy I am planning a trip to ASia for a wedding <3 LOVE U PLS GUYS LMK UR THOUGHTS ON THIS I LOVE THE DRAMAAA pairing ⸺ Suguru Geto x Reader content ⸺ corporate-worker!reader, emotional tension, modern au, the good-ole-days trope, reader uses female pronouns, smoking mentioned(weed + cigs), themes of substance abuse, taglist at end, 4k, this is an 18+ series - mdni

divider credit: @/toastray ୨୧ art credit: @/juziluohai

previous chapter ୨୧ series masterlist ୨୧ next chapter

**Monday, 10:03 a.m.**

“… and if we can get those decks consolidated by end-of-day, we’ll be in a good place for the client check-in on Wednesday.”

Click. Click. Click.

The sound of a mouse somewhere near your left ear. 

A bulky early-2000s style keyboard clacking distantly to your right. 

The gentle, yet oh so persistent hum of the conference room's overhead light—just enough to give you a headache without actually qualifying as a noise complaint.

You blinked slowly at the screen in front of you. A slideshow you did not make. Fonts you did not choose. Bullet points someone definitely wrote with way too much enthusiasm for phrases like "brand narrative integrity" and "consumer-forward visibility."

The meeting had technically started four minutes ago, but the pace of it had already gone syrup-slow. Everyone pretending to care about the quarterly roadmap. Everyone nodding a little too earnestly.

Your eyes darted to the bottom of your screen.

Slide 3 of 37.

Ughhh.

“…thinking we could pivot to something more user-centric. Thoughts?”

You weren’t sure who had said that or what it was in reference to. You watched the mouse cursor drift lazily across the shared screen, circling a graph that didn’t matter. Your eyes glazed over.

Your camera was off, thank god. You were slumped half-sideways in your chair, the lopsided croissant you’d eaten on the train still threatening mutiny somewhere in your chest. 

The coffee in your paper to-go cup had already gone tepid. You took a sip anyway, taking into consideration how exhausted you felt—Regretted it immediately.

“…if we could circle back on the Q2 assets sometime this week—maybe a quick sync before close of business Thursday?”

A brief silence. Then a chorus of agreeable hums. Someone said, “Yeah, totally.” Another voice chirped, “Sounds good.”

You felt a laugh bubble somewhere behind your ribs—not real amusement, just a small, spiralling hysteria at the sheer cliché of it all.

You closed your eyes for one half-second too long.

And there it was—uninvited but not unwelcome.

The memory arrived all at once.

The door. The rain. Him.

He had just stood there for a second—on the other side of your doorway. Rain still clinging to his coat, hair down and heavy with water, dark strands stuck to the curve of his cheek.

The hallway behind him had been cold and dim. But the light from your apartment had spilled forward into it, warm and low, and when it hit him like that—

God—That image of him felt like it was plastered onto your retinas.

The rain had soaked through everything, clinging to him in a way that felt indecent. 

The more you thought about it, the more you’d come to a simple conclusion—he’d looked good like that. Rain-damp and quiet, his voice a soft hey that had settled low in your stomach and stayed there.

You hadn’t expected to notice it. The flush on his face, the way he’d touched the back of his neck, the slow drag of the towel through his hair.

Coat open. Hair heavy and wet, that slow way he blinked, like the light took a second too long to register. Water dripping from his collarbone to the fabric below.

Back in the walls of your cubicle, someone said, “Can we flag that for the legal branch before sending up? Just to be safe on any future liability issues.”

A few murmured yeahs followed—some yellow ‘thumbs-up’ emojis flew around the screen, you decided to send a thumbs up too, what the hell, why not.

You reached for your coffee again. This time, pinching your nose with one hand and taking it like a shot to avoid tasting how awful it was.

Thank god weed doesn’t give you hangovers, or you’d be absolutely screwed.

Still, there was something off about your composure this morning. Not tired, not hungover. 

You had made a promise to yourself, after everything that went down in school, that you would stop smoking—initially, you meant mostly the weed, you just decided you may as well throw the cigs in there too, start a new ‘era’. 

Well…you ended that era last night. 

By the time he had even lit it, you’d already committed to the lie. No turning back.

Your thumb brushed his knuckles as you took it from him, smoke curling into the dark—and behind your eyes, that slow, familiar warmth had already begun to gather.

Not that it mattered now. What’s one night? One shared filter, one familiar haze. An old habit, quietly resurrected under city light and the kind of silence you didn’t want to break.

You shifted slightly in your chair, hoping that shifting your body might shake him loose from your thoughts.

It didn’t.

The air in the office felt stale, over-warmed from too many bodies and not enough ventilation. Somewhere nearby, a coworker was chewing with their mic still on—wet, deliberate bites that made your eye twitch.

Your phone buzzed once on the desk. Then again.

You flipped it over, glancing down just in time to catch:

Gojo: So. Gojo: Suguru’s texted me three times already this morning

Buzz.

Gojo: Direct quote “went over to her’s. smoked. felt like old times.” Absolutely no follow-up. He’s so dramatic

Buzz.

Gojo: Anyway Gojo: We’re smoking again now??

Buzz.

Gojo: Thought you came over to my side?? Gojo: Clean lungs? moral superiority?? Green juice and judgment???

You exhaled slowly through your nose, thumb hovering.

You: It really is not that deep.

Gojo: That’s what they all say before they’re bumming lighters and talking about “missing the ritual” Gojo: Seen it a thousand times You: K. Well I don’t think this is something you need to lose sleep over Gojo…I’m at work attempting to pay attention You: So bye bye!

You swiped downward on your screen and quickly turning on DND mode before you could be bothered by his texting habits. 

The black screen caught your reflection—eyes tired, jaw tight, the faintest trace of a smirk still lingering at the edge of your mouth. You set the phone down. Shifted your focus back to the meeting. 

Well—Tried to.

And—yeah. You did kind of miss the ritual.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

**Monday, 6:07 p.m.**

The subway car was too hot.

Your coat stuck awkwardly to one side of your body, and someone’s elbow was wedged with absolute conviction against your ribs. 

The car jolted. You swayed along with it. 

Someone’s tote bag kept hitting the back of your knee with each sway of the train, and the guy next to you was breathing way too confidently for someone who obviously hadn’t brushed their teeth today.

You did not have it in you to judge. Not today.

The air was thick with collective resignation. Monday exhaustion. The kind that pressed in from all sides, like wet cotton. 

Your forehead itched, but you couldn’t raise your arm to scratch it without elbowing the woman scrolling TikTok behind you. Instead, you shifted your weight, pressed your shoulder harder into the metal pole, and tried not to sigh audibly.

You had been a little bummed today. Nothing tragic—just one of those dumb, tiny disappointments that shouldn’t matter and yet somehow did. 

One of your coworkers had been out sick, which meant no homemade bread on the corner of the office kitchen island. No little Ziploc bags of sourdough or rye to take home, all lovingly baked and evenly sliced. No absurdly good focaccia with salt crystals big enough to break a molar.

You had spent the first half of the day thinking about that bread. And then the second half of the day, realizing it wasn’t coming.

A tragic arc, honestly. A true Shakespearean fall.

The subway lurched again and a collective sway passed through the car like a wave. You closed your eyes, let your head bob with the jolts of the commute. The movement outside blurred into smears of white light, tinny station announcements rising and falling in the distance like some garbled chorus.

Your phone buzzed once in your pocket. Then again.

You didn’t reach for it. You didn’t need to. You already knew.

Gojo had probably sent another unsolicited monologue about lung purity and self-betterment.

You’d let him rot in DND purgatory. At least for now. Till you had the energy for him

Your reflection in the dark subway glass stared back at you—tired, vaguely wilted. Your eyeliner had migrated slightly southward. 

The train hissed and stuttered to a stop. A voice over the PA said something unintelligible. The doors opened, and half the car shifted like a living thing, bodies brushing past each other with silent, city-trained apathy.

You moved with them.

Out onto the platform. Up the stairs. Into the strange blue air of early evening—where everything smelled like oil and wet concrete and someone’s cheap cologne.

It wasn’t until you turned the corner onto your block that you let yourself fish out your phone. A few texts from Gojo, exactly as expected. You ignored them.

And then, below those—

One new message.

Geto: [Spotify link]

Just that. 

A blue hyperlink tucked beneath his name.

The cooler evening air caught the collar of your coat. Wind pressed lightly against one side of your face. Despite the weather finally starting to warm up, that lakefront breeze was persistent.

You kept walking, thumb hovering over the message for a beat too long before tapping.

The app lagged. 

A black screen. The little wheel spinning – evidence of your shitty data plan.

You adjusted your grip on the phone. Slipped it into your palm with more care than necessary. The sound of your shoes echoed faintly off the concrete walls of the narrow side street—quick, metered steps. A soft gust carried the scent of someone’s dinner from a cracked apartment window overhead. 

The playlist loaded slowly. 

Cover image first: that old blurry photo you'd used years ago—some grainy snapshot of a rainy street corner you thought looked poetic in college. And then the title. Still there. Still lowercase, still pretentious. Songs you’d rearranged a dozen times over the years.

It played automatically, the first song of the playlist playing softly in your headphones, the familiar warm, looping guitar, steady drums that you played around your apartment.

Confused, you slowed your pace, causing the man behind you to passively-aggressively walk past you while shaking his head in frustration. 

Before you had any time to think, his name was at the top of your screen.

Underneath it, the second message:

Geto: Thought I recognized last night's playlist…

No emoji. No follow-up. Just that.

Your fingers froze around the phone and you stopped in your tracks. 

A strange pressure gathered behind your ribs as you put two-and-two together.

He actually listened to that playlist?

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

**2 Years and 5 Months Ago: Gojo & Geto’s House  1:37 am**

The party had started loud.

Someone had spilled beer on the welcome mat. Someone else had duct-taped glowsticks to the ceiling fan, which you kind of liked.

Gojo was already shirtless in the kitchen for some reason no one had asked about, he always got like this when he and Suguru hosted parties — the little attention seeker.

You liked house parties. 

People handed you drinks with way too much vodka. The couch never cost you ten dollars to sit on. And at 3 a.m., you could order pad thai without judgment. 

Way better than the bars.

It must’ve been after 1 a.m. by the time you ended up on the living room couch—your usual post, worn-in and sagging at the center. 

The room was dim, lit mostly by string lights sagging in the corners. A bassline thudded through the drywall, probably coming from the Bluetooth speaker Gojo kept threatening to take into the shower with him.

Geto sat to your right, one knee drawn up on the cushion. The joint balanced between his fingers glowed faintly, orange and steady. He passed it to you without looking.

Outside the window, the sky had gone ink-black. Inside, someone was playing a drinking game too loudly in the kitchen.

Geto leaned back a little, socked foot nudging the coffee table.

“Is this your music?” He asked, after a long moment.

You nodded, exhaling a refreshing cloud of smoke. “I think Gojo gave me the aux without realizing it.”

“Makes sense,” he said. “Didn’t sound like his usual headache-inducing mix.”

You smiled, tipping ash into a mug that wasn’t technically an ashtray but had seen worse.

Geto shifted slightly, leaned his elbow on the back of the couch. His voice stayed even, and carried a casual tone. “You have a playlist, or do you just shuffle by vibe?”

You let the question settle between you. A warm beat passed, the joint still resting between your fingers.

“I have a few playlists.”

“Mhm.”

Your head turned slightly toward him, eyes narrowing just enough to catch his profile in the dim light. “Why?”

“Send me one,” he said. 

His gaze stayed forward, attention seemingly on nothing. One hand draped loosely across his knee, fingers curled like he couldn’t be bothered to tense them. “I want to listen later.”

You scoffed, sharp and instinctive. “No.”

His brow lifted in quiet surprise at your quick reaction, the corner of his mouth tugging faintly. 

“C’mon. One. Just one.”

You pulled your feet up on the couch cushion, crossed them beneath you, and tucked your cold feet under your knee. “Nope.”

A soft laugh rumbled low in his chest—short, almost self-contained. It barely broke the air between you, but you felt it anyway. The sound of it made the room slightly warmer.

“Seriously?”

“I don’t share those,” you said, pinching the joint between thumb and index, then tipping the ash into the mug beside the couch. The ember flared as you took another hit, your fingers twitching slightly to adjust for heat.

“Says who?”

“Says me.” You paused, voice thinning with something not quite defensiveness. “They’re personal.”

His leg shifted. The knee nearest yours bumped gently into your shin, casual but deliberate. A light contact. 

“Oh, so personal,” he said, feigning gravity. “What, are they all, like, secret love ballads?”

You exhaled, smoke leaving your lips in a slow ribbon. “Hmm, wouldn’t you like to know?” You said, your voice long and shaped by the drag you’d just taken.

His grin broke then, easy and bright. This one cracked his face open fully—teeth and all. A flash of something fond in it. He turned to you properly now, the space between your knees barely there.

“Don’t be greedy,” he murmured, lazy in his seat.

Your eyes stayed forward, locked on the mess of red solo cups littering the floor across the room, but the corner of your lip tugged. “I’m not being greedy.”

He leaned back a little deeper into the couch, spine melting into the threadbare cushions like he belonged there. Which he kind of did. 

His hand draped loose over the backrest, fingers dangling near the top of your shoulder, the distance between them and your skin a live wire. He smelled faintly like weed and clove and something older—familiar.

“Yeah?” He exhaled smoke through his nose, grin tugging wider. “Could’ve fooled me.”

His hand flexed a little behind your shoulder, arm still draped lazily over the couch. The look he gave you was all teeth and warmth, just bordering on cocky.

“C’mon,” he said, voice dipping just under the music—huskier now, scratched faint at the edges like the smoke had caught somewhere in his throat. “You gonna pretend we don’t know each other like that?”

There wasn’t enough air between you. 

Not with the way the couch dipped. Not with the way his voice scratched low from smoke, but still came out smooth.

Your gaze flicked up—just once. Just enough to catch the weight of his eyes on you, heavy and patient. Then dropped again.

You blinked once, slowly.

A flicker of something moved through your chest—tight and inconvenient. You swallowed it down. Turned toward him slightly.

Your lips parted. The joint burned low between your fingers, forgotten for a moment. Your thigh brushed his when you shifted, but he didn’t move. If anything, he angled closer.

You inhaled. Letting the smoke linger in your lungs before speaking. “It’s not about that.”

“No?” His smile was soft now, barely there. “What’s it about?”

Your voice came quieter this time. “It’s just…y’know…you build your music collection throughout your whole entire life. Like, your whole life. It’s not just songs that you like. Each playlist is a collection of memories. Stuff you never intended to share.”

A beat passed. 

The joint burned low between your fingers. You held it out toward him, offering it to him rather than saying anything else, but his eyes weren’t on the joint.

They lingered instead—on the way your leg had started to lean into his, just slightly. The way you hadn’t moved. 

That look of his—half-lidded, lazy, but pinned so squarely on you it felt like a touch. His head tilted faintly to one side, hair falling in front of his cheekbone, and when he grinned this time, it was full—slow and real. A little lopsided. Something that wasn’t a common expression of his.

That grin had no business being on a face so calm.

“Fine.” You said, finally giving in as you tugged your phone from the pocket of your jeans. 

The screen lit your face faintly blue as you thumbed through your music app, already knowing which one you’d send.

He didn’t say anything. Just watched. And that might’ve been the first time you noticed the quiet gravity of his gaze—how present it made him feel, even without words.

A second later, his own phone buzzed in his lap. He glanced down at the notification.

You lifted your eyes, deadpan. “And don’t get all weird about it. It’s like...not even a sliver of my soul. Practically a crumb.”

Geto huffed a laugh, crooked and pleased, thumb still hovering over the screen. “Oh, just a crumb? That’s all I get?”

You nodded confidently, “Mhm, one’s more than enough.”

He grinned, the kind that pulled deliberately at one side of his mouth. “You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

“I do,” you said, exhaling smoke toward the sagging lights. “And I’m not using any of those skills right now.”

He leaned back again, face tilted toward the ceiling like he might laugh, but didn’t. Just smiled—quiet and real and a little tired around the edges.

୨୧ ୨୧ ୨୧

**Present Day**

Your thumb hovered above the screen again. Not moving. Just… resting there.

The song played on—its chorus quiet but insistent, winding its way through your earbuds like it knew something you didn’t.

You looked up absently, eyes catching on nothing in particular: a wet glint on the sidewalk, a flickering lamplight across the street, your own faint reflection in the glass window of the laundromat. 

The world felt off-center suddenly, like someone had rotated it a few degrees clockwise while you weren’t looking.

You remembered sharing your playlist with him that one night. You were both so crossed—in your usual spot together on the couch. You protested, but despite all of your best efforts, you sent him the link to one of the playlists.

And then—he’d never said anything. Not really. 

Maybe a polite “thanks,” some comment about the song titles being cryptic. You’d assumed he hadn’t listened. Or if he had, not more than once. Maybe not even all the way through.

But now…

Now you couldn’t stop thinking about him hearing it again. Recognizing it.

Of all the songs you played. Of all the nights.

It had taken you hours to curate that playlist. You'd aimed for something lowkey—comfort music, stuff you knew inside out, the kind of songs that felt like woodgrain and soft light and a warm couch you could sink into.

Not something you expected him to notice. Not something to place so easily. 

And most definitely not something he would remember over two years later.

Suddenly your whole chest felt… out of sync. Too hot, too tight. You started walking again, slower this time, even though you were less than a minute away, you were in no rush.

You hadn’t realized you were still holding the phone until the screen dimmed in your palm. You tapped it back awake. Then stared.

Geto: Thought I recognized last night’s playlist…

There was a part of you—an unhelpful, fluttering part—that wanted to write back:

MY playlist?? How many times have you listened to it? You never even brought it up again after I shared it?????

But you didn’t.

Instead, you slipped your phone back into your coat pocket, let your fingers curl around it. Like that might settle something in you. Like it might slow the strange, quiet tremble that had started under your skin.

The music played on, and you let it.

Same guitar loop. Same steady drums. But your thoughts did not flow with the music as usual, no, they were stuck on Suguru.

After a few moments of overthinking, your feet brought you to your apartment.

The door clicked open beneath your hand, hinges sighing the way they always did. A slow breath passed through your lips as you stepped inside, the soft shuffle of your shoes against the mat filling the silence.

The music still played—muffled now, one earbud still tucked in, the other hanging limp against your collar. A gentle guitar loop unfurled through the wires, slipping into the apartment with you like something remembered.

You didn’t bother turning on the lights. 

The early evening gloom had settled in—soft and blue, the kind that bled into the corners of rooms and made everything feel like it belonged in a dream. Or maybe just the part after waking.

Coat still on, you walked toward the kitchen. No purpose at first—just movement. Just something to do with your limbs. But then your eyes landed on the sink.

Those two damn space animal mugs, sitting exactly where you'd left them the night before byv the sink. 

They weren’t remarkable, not in shape or colour. But they now, for some reason, evoked a different reaction in you.

Your chest gave the faintest ache. Not sharp. Just a weight, settling in beneath the ribs like a familiar guest.

The music threaded on, drums steady. The chords moved in slow circles. You’d chosen this playlist for comfort. But now it felt like carried too much. 

Your fingers moved to the tap, as if that might help.

Warm water, soft foam. The sponge moved on instinct. One mug. Then the other. But your body felt distant from the motion—like it was happening a few steps outside of yourself.

His voice lingered in your ears—not in the music, but beneath it. Not a word-for-word memory. 

More like the frequency of his speech. The vibration of his words. That low, amused tone he used when something caught him off guard—in a good way.

Your chest pulled tighter.

It didn’t make sense, how many ways the past twenty-four hours had folded themselves around you. How easily he slipped into all the quiet parts of the day. The parts that used to feel yours alone. 

Your eyes glanced to the balcony door.

The sheer curtain stirred faintly in its frame, catching a breeze you couldn’t feel from where you stood.

Outside, the city smudged against the glass—dull orange streetlights, a shifting silhouette of branches, a flicker of someone else’s life a few floors down.

The track was ending—fading into the brief silence between songs. You stood in it, feeling the way it clung to your skin.

And then the thought came, uninvited but unmistakable.

“God,” you muttered, barely above a breath. “I could really use a sesh right now.”

The words hung in the air for a moment—half a joke, half a prayer—and then you turned, the tile cool beneath your socks as you padded down the hallway, the music still playing quietly behind you, like it knew exactly what kind of night this was becoming.

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[simplygojo]

Omg my favourite moot…THANKS POOKIE I HOPE UR DOING WELL

Friend-Of-A-Friend ⸺ Chapter Eight

author's note ⸺ This chapter was very personal to me and I hope that many of you find this somewhat relatable in your own ways. I LOVE Y'ALL!! Lmk your thoughts on this chapter once you read it <3 Also exciting news: I will be publishing a nerdjo x reader multi-chapter fic in June!! So stay tuned!! pairing ⸺ Suguru Geto x Reader content ⸺ corporate-worker!reader, emotional tension, modern au, the good-ole-days trope, reader uses female pronouns, smoking, drug use, themes of substance abuse, taglist at end, 3.7k, this is an 18+ series - mdni

divider credit: @/toastray ୨୧ art credit: @/juziluohai

previous chapter ୨୧ series masterlist ୨୧ next chapter

“But—” His gaze found yours again. This time, he didn’t look away.

And you felt it. The weight of it. 

His thumb drifted along the curve of the mug, slow and deliberate, the motion steadying in a way that suggested he wasn’t quite at rest.

“Is it so wrong if I just wanted some good company?”

Your heartbeat faltered at his words. There was no bravado in it. No performance. Just a small truth, placed gently between you like an offering. 

You were his idea of good company.

Your fingers curled tighter around your own mug, warmth pressed into your palms but not quite reaching the center of you. Your heart kicked up—not loudly, but like a shift in tempo you could feel in your throat. 

He was still watching you, eyes steady, but there was something vulnerable in the way he waited. 

Your lips parted on a breath that felt quieter than the room deserved.

“No,” you said, your voice low. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

The smallest smile passed between you—his first, yours answering. Not wide, not bright. Just enough to acknowledge something unnamed.

You shifted slightly, enough that your knee brushed the edge of the coffee table. The mugs between you sent up gentle curls of steam, barely moving.

“That’s what university friends are for, after all.”

His smile faltered—barely. 

A twitch at the corner of his mouth, a breath that didn’t quite follow through. If you hadn’t been looking right at him, you might’ve missed it altogether.

But it was there.

His gaze dipped—not away, not shy, just lower. Toward his hands, still resting around the mug, though his grip had loosened. The steam touched his chin, rose past his cheek, caught briefly in the ends of his hair.

The air between you held still, suspended.

He nodded once, slowly, in that way people do when they don’t quite agree but don’t plan to correct you. A soft hum followed, the sound barely reaching the space between you.

Outside, the rain thickened, blurring the world past the window into motionless grey. Inside, your eyes were still on him—watching the way his shoulders eased against the back cushion, the way his thumb returned to that same slow trace along the mug, steady again.

Not at rest. But steady.

Whatever had flickered across his face, it was gone—tucked back into that familiar calm. But something in the room had shifted, just slightly. Not tense. Not cold.

Just… stilled.

A tightness gathered in your chest—not sharp, not sudden. Just a low, creeping pressure, settling in the space between your ribs. Like you’d said the wrong thing without realizing it. Like a misstep in a dark room.

You tried to place it, tried to trace it back, but the moment had already passed.

Geto didn’t look at you right away. His gaze had drifted again, this time toward the balcony door, where the glass was misted faintly from the temperature shift.

His voice, when it came, was soft. Unhurried. “Do you still smoke?”

Nope.

“Yep, thin's changed.” 

You quit smoking right after graduation. Both cigarettes and weed. 

You had always been pretty good at doing things ‘cold-turkey’ as they say. It hadn’t even been dramatic—just a slow detachment, a habit you didn’t need anymore.

But tonight didn’t feel like a night for the truth.

Plus, you'd already lied...

His eyes flicked back to yours, studying your answer for a beat longer than necessary. If he noticed the lie, he didn’t say anything.

Instead, he gave a small, satisfied nod.

“Good,” he said, rising from the couch with the kind of ease that made you think he’d been waiting for the moment. “Been needing a smoking buddy…let’s go out. Well…I guess only if your balcony’s covered.”

He stood, brushing past the table with a steady, measured step. No rush—just done sitting still.

You pushed out a dry laugh and got to your feet, nodding toward the balcony. “Don’t worry. It’s covered…one of the best things about this place.”

He gave a small nod, subtle but certain. 

As he moved across the room, you followed without thinking, footsteps quiet on the floor. The air between you had gone heavier—not hostile, just dense with something unnamed, something that felt like it should be acknowledged but wasn't.

At the balcony door, he hesitated, one hand resting on the frame, his back turned to you.

Without saying anything, you stepped up beside him, he turned his head just slightly, just enough that you caught the edge of his profile. The dip of his brow, the faintest press of his lips—not quite a smile, not quite not.

Then he slid the door open.

The sound was soft: the low shuffle of glass against its track, the hush of the rain deepening. A wind, cool and wet, brushed into the room like breath.

You followed him out.

The balcony was small, barely more than a ledge dressed in an old chair and a potted plant that hadn’t quite made it through last winter. But the overhang held, and the air under it was dry enough, close enough.

Geto faced the street, resting his elbows on the railing, the rain just beyond the reach of his sleeve. You took your place beside him, resting your back on the cool railing and crossing your arms over your chest.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

The city below was muted—just the hush of tires through water, the hum of distant traffic, the occasional splash of a passing bus. 

You could hear the rain more than you could see it. A sheet of sound, steady and relentless.

He exhaled slow, then reached into his coat pocket.

You weren’t surprised when he pulled out a box of cigarettes and slid one out. It looked nearly untouched—he must’ve bought the box today. 

He held the dart loosely between two fingers, almost uncertain.

“I try not to smoke anymore,” he murmured. “I don’t do it as often now. Just...sometimes.”

You didn’t ask what sometimes meant. You didn’t need to.

The wet air kissed your cheeks, your jaw, and you welcomed it—something grounding, something that didn’t ask anything back.

He lit the cigarette with a practiced flick of his lighter. The flame flared, brief and golden, then died.

He didn’t smoke right away. Just held it there, watching the tip, watching the rain.

“So, how was your weekend?” He asked, voice low, roughened just slightly by disuse and rain.

You glanced at him, then down at the cigarette between his fingers. You gave a small nod toward it—a silent ask.

He looked at you, eyes catching yours for a beat before passing it over without a word.

You took it gently, brought it to your lips and nhaled slowly.

The taste hit the back of your throat—acrid, familiar, not exactly missed. But there was a strange comfort in it. A muscle memory. Something from a version of you that used to exist, still flickering somewhere in the corners.

You exhaled toward the street, smoke curling into the wet air, disappearing into rain.

“It was good,” you said, still looking outward. 

He shifted slightly, fishing into his coat pocket with his free hand. The sound of crinkling cellophane, then the softer, telltale click of a lighter again.

When you finally looked over, he wasn’t watching you—he was focused on the joint between his fingers, bringing it to life with a slow inhale. 

The smell changed almost immediately. Warmer. Thicker. Earthy, familiar, and oddly grounding.

He took a drag, held it, then exhaled slow—upward, toward the overhang above your heads. The smoke gathered there a moment, then faded with the breeze.

“Mostly just…chores around the house. Ran a few errands. Ended up being pretty convenient that I cleaned, y’know, since you went ahead and invited yourself on over.” You cast him a sideways glance, the hint of a smile tugging at your mouth. 

He chuckled without looking at you, low and genuine, flashing a glimpse of perfect teeth. “Well, now you’re making it seem like I’m not welcome here.”

Your smile deepened, barely. You took another drag, slower this time, eyes back on the city.

“I didn’t say that.”

The words hung there between you, light on the surface—but underlined with something quieter, something real. 

“Trade you…” He said, gesturing lazily with the joint between two fingers, eyes flicking to your lips—or I guess more likely the cigarette resting between your lips.

You gave a soft hum, considering. The rain had thinned to a mist now, no longer loud, just steady. A hush against the concrete.

You took one last drag, then you pulled it from your mouth and turned to hand it to him.

It wasn’t until it left your fingers that you noticed it—that faint, smudged stain on the filter. A soft pink, barely there, pressed from your tinted lip balm. Innocuous. Ordinary.

But his eyes found it instantly.

Just a flicker. A pause.

His gaze caught on the mark as he took the cigarette from your hand, and you saw something subtle shift in his face. Nothing overt—just the smallest tension in his jaw, the way his fingers curled slightly tighter around the paper.

He didn’t comment. Didn’t even meet your eyes right away.

He took the cigarette, turned it gently between his fingers, then brought it to his lips in one smooth motion. Inhaled once, eyes still lowered, as if reading something written in the imprint you left behind.

You accepted the joint in return, the warm tip grazing your palm as it passed between you. 

You didn’t say anything, just raised it to your lips, took a puff.

The pull was easy—too easy.

The taste was sharp, earthy at the edges, thick in a way that settled fast like a fog behind your eyes.

Warmth slid in low through your ribs, slow and syrupy, like a door creaking open somewhere you hadn’t meant to revisit.

You held the smoke a second longer than necessary. Let it press into your lungs. And when you exhaled, it left like a sigh you didn’t know you’d been holding onto.

The relief came quickly. Expected in a way that unsettled you—not loud, not dizzying, just nice. Just good. A gentle hum beneath your skin, a softness in your chest, like the evening had finally remembered how to breathe.

And for a moment, you didn’t mind how much you liked it.

Your head tipped slightly back, eyes half-lidded to the street below, and you let the feeling settle. The rain was still falling, but quieter now—like background music, like it had always been there. The city lights blinked lazy and soft through the mist.

You took another drag.

Slower. Deeper.

And it hit the same—pleasant, indulgent, that precise kind of calm that was once your to answer to everything.

It almost made you smile.

Almost.

But when you glanced at him again, he was watching you.

Not in the obvious way. Not full-on.

Just that same glance from the corner of his eye, lazy on the surface—but heavy underneath. 

And when he brought the cigarette back to his mouth, it was deliberate. You knew it must’ve been.

He twisted the cigarette between his fingers, aligning it perfectly to the spot. That same spot. The one your lips had marked.

He inhaled again, slower this time. 

A deeper pull. And though he didn’t say anything, you saw it—the way his eyes fluttered shut just slightly, the way his brow smoothed. Like whatever sharpness had caught in him earlier had been gentled. Calmed.

Maybe it was the nicotine. Maybe it was you.

You looked away before your gaze could make the moment into something it wasn’t meant to be. 

Your hand rested on the damp railing again, fingers curling against the chill of the metal, still faintly buzzing from the hit. The high was spreading in that quiet way it always used to—like warm hands up your spine, like pressure leaving your bones one vertebra at a time.

You hadn’t touched this stuff in over a year.

Hadn’t even really thought about it, not seriously.

But now, in the dim orange spill of streetlights and the hush of rainfall, it was like no time had passed at all. The joint burned evenly between your fingers. Your muscles remembered this. Your breath did. 

You blinked slowly, eyes heavy-lidded, the weight behind them not unpleasant. But you could feel it in your chest, too—a tug. A whisper of something you hadn’t wanted to hear again.

Still, you took another hit.

And didn’t stop yourself.

Beside you, Geto leaned forward slightly, arms braced on the railing. His cigarette dangled lazily between two fingers now, smoke curling up past his wrist in slow spirals. You watched the city together in silence, not speaking, not needing to.

But it didn’t last long.

Eventually, you broke it—soft, careful, your voice curved with a lazy edge.

“So,” you murmured, watching headlights crawl through the wet street below, “how was your weekend?”

His lips quirked, barely.

“Do anything better than chores and errands?” You teased.

He glanced sideways at you, the corner of his mouth still curved like he was trying not to smile too much.

There was a pause.

Then: “Mm… not really.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Not even one thrilling adventure?”

He gave a soft huff of breath, the closest thing to a laugh, and looked back out at the street.

“Not even one,” he said. “Unless you count reorganizing my spice rack.”

You snorted, quiet and amused, smoke catching faintly in your throat.

“Very thrilling.”

“Reckless, even,” he added, and you heard the warmth in it. The ease. “How’s the job hunt going?”

Your fingers tightened at the question, just slightly.

Instead of answering, you lifted the joint to your lips again.

The inhale came slow. Heat filled your lungs, stretching the seconds out. Let the silence stretch just enough to feel like control, not avoidance.

Then came the exhale, steady and quiet, smoke lifting into the air like it might carry the dreadful question away.

“It’s… going,” you said finally, voice soft.

Not a lie, exactly. But not much of an answer either.

He nodded once. Didn’t push. Just shifted his weight on the railing again, the movement quiet, patient.

You watched his profile from the corner of your eye—how his brow stayed smooth, how he didn’t look at you like he was waiting for more. Just listening. Just holding the space.

You wet your lips, thumb rolling over the seam of the joint between your fingers.

“I sent out a bunch of stuff last week,” you added, more to the night air than to him. “But, to be honest with you, I don’t even know what I’m applying for.”

That made him glance over—not sharply, not surprised. Just a soft turn of the head, eyes dark and steady under the lazy curve of his lashes.

“None of these jobs are…” Your fingers opened slightly. Then closed again. “They’re not things I want to do. I don’t even know what I do want. I just—” You broke off, shrugging. “—can’t tell if I’m lost or just tired.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It moved, slow and full like a tide pulling back.

Geto didn’t rush to fill it. He leaned his arms on the railing, wrists loose. His voice came after a beat—low, unintrusive.

“That’s not nothing. Knowing what you don’t want is at least something.”

His tone wasn’t placating. No hollow comfort. Just a truth, offered to you quietly.

You exhaled through your nose, not quite a laugh. “Well it feels like nothing. Doesn’t really help when every realistic job option sounds like a slightly twisted version of the same thing.”

He nodded again, slow this time. The city noise buzzed beneath you both—distant horns, a siren off somewhere, the soft shuffle of wind over brick.

“People make it sound like you’re supposed to know,” he said. “Have a plan. A five-year vision. Some neat little road map with checkboxes.” 

His mouth curved, faint and crooked. “But most of the people I know just picked something and hoped they’d grow into it…You don’t have to want something extraordinary,” he added. “You just have to want something that feels yours.”

His soft-spoken words landed like pressure on a bruise—quiet, but hard. Your jaw tightened before your head turned away from him.

“The thing is, Geto, lots of people did grow into it. Gojo’s out here in his glass-walled office, pitching brand deals and loving every second of it. Shoko’s practically sleepwalking through med school and still managing to thrive. Even you—you’re doing actual good in the world, and don’t pretend like you couldn’t have walked into any job you wanted after university.”

A breath caught in your chest and didn’t know where to go from here. 

“I just don’t want to pick wrong,” you said.

“And be stuck. Like—I keep having these dreams where I wake up and everything around me is beige. Beige house. Beige job. Beige life!” You paused and finally looked at him again.

“A completely beige life! And it’s mine. And I chose it. And there’s no way out.”

Wow, you did not expect to say all that…

He didn’t answer right away. 

The glowing end of the lip-stained cigarette pulsed once more before he pulled the last drag, fingers steady even as smoke curled between them. Then he flicked it over the edge of the railing and leaned forward on his elbows, voice low.

“You’re allowed to change your mind, you know.”

The joint had gone out between your fingers—it was basically dead anyways—and you weren’t going to bother relighting it.

“But that feels like failing,” you said.

Something about saying it aloud made your stomach twist, like you’d just admitted to a crack in the foundation that everyone else had somehow managed to patch up.

He shifted his weight slightly, forearms braced on the edge of the balcony. The cotton of his sleeve brushed yours—just barely—but he didn’t pull away. And we both know you didn’t either…

“Is there nothing you’ve ever had a dream of?” He asked, voice soft but steady.

You blinked. Let the question hang there, raw and too close.

“I don’t know,” you said eventually, eyes fixed on the blurry constellation of taillights below. “I used to want things. Or I thought I did. But now it’s like—I can’t tell what was mine and what was just… momentum. Expectations. Stuff I thought I was supposed to want.”

His expression didn’t shift, but something in the line of his body—shoulders easing, jaw relaxing—held quiet understanding.

“I wanted to be a lawyer once,” you added, not sure why. “Not because I liked the idea of it. I just… thought it sounded impressive. Like something that made people listen to you.”

He nodded. No judgment. Just an acknowledgment, a gentle thread of attention.

“And you know,” you continued, voice tapering off at the edges, “now that I’m thinking about it…I think I just really wanted people to listen to me.”

You didn’t expect a response, and none came. Just the soft sound of traffic below, the distant hum of someone’s TV flickering through a half-open window.

“I don’t even really need to be thinking about this on a Sunday night,” you said, almost to yourself. 

He made a small sound beside you—something between a breath and a murmur—and then, gently:

“It’s okay.”

You didn’t look at him, but the quiet weight of it settled somewhere behind your ribs.

You stubbed out the joint on the railing, letting the butt of it fall to the empty street below, then pushed open the balcony door. Warm apartment air met your skin, the faint smell of old incense and herbal undertones from the soaked tea leaves still sitting on the counter.

Geto followed you inside. The door clicked shut behind him with a soft finality.

Inside, the apartment felt dim and close, like everything was exhaling at once. You stretched your arms overhead, spine cracking with the movement.

“I’m gonna hate myself tomorrow, usually I’m in bed by 10pm,” you muttered, scrubbing a hand down your face and glaring at the clock on your oven: 11:44pm

He leaned against the back of the couch. “You working in-office?”

“Unfortunately,” you said dryly. “Which means I get to play subway sardines at 8:30 a.m. again.”

He made a low noise—sympathy or shared suffering, you weren’t sure. “I’ve got a client downtown at nine. If I leave late, I’ll spend the whole ride with my face in someone’s armpit.”

“God. That’s bleak.”

“It’s reality.”

You pulled a face, half grimace, half grin. “We should unionize.”

Geto laughed—quiet and unhurried, the sound low in his chest. It wasn’t loud or showy, but it curled at the edges like warmth creeping in from a cold windowpane. 

He tipped his head back slightly, the light from the kitchen catching on his jaw, and when his bloodshot eyes met yours once more, there was such a warmth in his clouded gaze that you could feel it spreading through your chest.

“God, you’re pretty funny,” he said, voice like dry silk, soft but certain. Not teasing. Like he meant it. Like it was something he’d only just noticed, and was tucking away for later.

Your cheeks flushed—a slow bloom of warmth that caught you off guard. You looked down, caught between annoyance and something softer.

“Glad you finally caught on,” you muttered, voice low.

He smiled then—a slow, quiet curve of his lips that carried a thousand unspoken things. It wasn’t a showy grin, but the kind that softened the space between you, folding the silence into something almost tangible.

After a moment, he shrugged into his jacket, the damp fabric clinging briefly before settling over his broad shoulders. 

The weight of it shifted as he moved, a subtle reminder of the rain outside lingering with him.

You stepped toward the door, fingers grazing the cool metal handle. 

Pulling it open, a wash of the pale, sterile hallway light spilled in, pushing back the amber glow and lingering scents of your apartment like a slow tide retreating.

He stood framed in that sudden contrast—his silhouette sharp, hands tucked casually into his pockets. His eyes caught yours for a flicker, quiet and steady, before he stepped out into the dim corridor.

“Goodnight,” he said, voice low but clear.

“Goodnight,” you echoed, the word hanging soft between the closing door and the returning quiet. 

And when your smile finally fell, a few moments after the door clicked shut, the ache in your cheeks was still there—like your face hadn’t gotten the message that he was gone.

taglist ⸺ @killak9mi; @nikilig; @pinkhoneydrop; @armfloaties; @sat-hoe-ru; @kaqua; @rriwyu; @erenspersonalwh0re; @dishs0pe; @rwirxles; @yourname-exee; @pyruvic; @marianaz; @you-transfix-me; @simplyyyuji; @zoldyi; @linaaeatsfamilies; @anuncalledbridge; @aseqan; @starmapz; @nina-from-317; @kang-ulzzang; @hashahasha; @maybe-a-bi-witch; @zeunys; @pandabiene5115; @shibataimu; @enchantinghonymoon; @gradmacoco; @re-tired-succubus; @aspiring-bookworm; @idkidk32; @paintedperidot; @yourfavbabigirl; @tellria; @ruby-dubydu; @susanhill; @arabellasolstice; @getosshampoo; @xoxoblueyy; @bxnfire; @ayumilk; @hanatsuki-hime; @aldebrana; @jomijase1622; @garden0fyves; @luvaerina; @clearalienjudgeartisan; @smskhee; **please note: if your name is striked out, that means I was unable to tag you, please check your settings if you'd like to be tagged**

[simplygojo]

Hey all!!!

Not sure if anyone has noticed BUT I WAS GONE FOR LIKE 3 WEEKS!!! I had to go out of country and a few other things, but we are SO BACK!!!

I will be posting chapter 9 this week!!! I PROMISE!!

Anyways I have missed y’all <3

Friend-Of-A-Friend ⸺ Chapter Eight

author's note ⸺ This chapter was very personal to me and I hope that many of you find this somewhat relatable in your own ways. I LOVE Y'ALL!! Lmk your thoughts on this chapter once you read it <3 Also exciting news: I will be publishing a nerdjo x reader multi-chapter fic in June!! So stay tuned!! pairing ⸺ Suguru Geto x Reader content ⸺ corporate-worker!reader, emotional tension, modern au, the good-ole-days trope, reader uses female pronouns, smoking, drug use, themes of substance abuse, taglist at end, 3.7k, this is an 18+ series - mdni

divider credit: @/toastray ୨୧ art credit: @/juziluohai

previous chapter ୨୧ series masterlist ୨୧ next chapter

“But—” His gaze found yours again. This time, he didn’t look away.

And you felt it. The weight of it. 

His thumb drifted along the curve of the mug, slow and deliberate, the motion steadying in a way that suggested he wasn’t quite at rest.

“Is it so wrong if I just wanted some good company?”

Your heartbeat faltered at his words. There was no bravado in it. No performance. Just a small truth, placed gently between you like an offering. 

You were his idea of good company.

Your fingers curled tighter around your own mug, warmth pressed into your palms but not quite reaching the center of you. Your heart kicked up—not loudly, but like a shift in tempo you could feel in your throat. 

He was still watching you, eyes steady, but there was something vulnerable in the way he waited. 

Your lips parted on a breath that felt quieter than the room deserved.

“No,” you said, your voice low. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

The smallest smile passed between you—his first, yours answering. Not wide, not bright. Just enough to acknowledge something unnamed.

You shifted slightly, enough that your knee brushed the edge of the coffee table. The mugs between you sent up gentle curls of steam, barely moving.

“That’s what university friends are for, after all.”

His smile faltered—barely. 

A twitch at the corner of his mouth, a breath that didn’t quite follow through. If you hadn’t been looking right at him, you might’ve missed it altogether.

But it was there.

His gaze dipped—not away, not shy, just lower. Toward his hands, still resting around the mug, though his grip had loosened. The steam touched his chin, rose past his cheek, caught briefly in the ends of his hair.

The air between you held still, suspended.

He nodded once, slowly, in that way people do when they don’t quite agree but don’t plan to correct you. A soft hum followed, the sound barely reaching the space between you.

Outside, the rain thickened, blurring the world past the window into motionless grey. Inside, your eyes were still on him—watching the way his shoulders eased against the back cushion, the way his thumb returned to that same slow trace along the mug, steady again.

Not at rest. But steady.

Whatever had flickered across his face, it was gone—tucked back into that familiar calm. But something in the room had shifted, just slightly. Not tense. Not cold.

Just… stilled.

A tightness gathered in your chest—not sharp, not sudden. Just a low, creeping pressure, settling in the space between your ribs. Like you’d said the wrong thing without realizing it. Like a misstep in a dark room.

You tried to place it, tried to trace it back, but the moment had already passed.

Geto didn’t look at you right away. His gaze had drifted again, this time toward the balcony door, where the glass was misted faintly from the temperature shift.

His voice, when it came, was soft. Unhurried. “Do you still smoke?”

Nope.

“Yep, thin's changed.” 

You quit smoking right after graduation. Both cigarettes and weed. 

You had always been pretty good at doing things ‘cold-turkey’ as they say. It hadn’t even been dramatic—just a slow detachment, a habit you didn’t need anymore.

But tonight didn’t feel like a night for the truth.

Plus, you'd already lied...

His eyes flicked back to yours, studying your answer for a beat longer than necessary. If he noticed the lie, he didn’t say anything.

Instead, he gave a small, satisfied nod.

“Good,” he said, rising from the couch with the kind of ease that made you think he’d been waiting for the moment. “Been needing a smoking buddy…let’s go out. Well…I guess only if your balcony’s covered.”

He stood, brushing past the table with a steady, measured step. No rush—just done sitting still.

You pushed out a dry laugh and got to your feet, nodding toward the balcony. “Don’t worry. It’s covered…one of the best things about this place.”

He gave a small nod, subtle but certain. 

As he moved across the room, you followed without thinking, footsteps quiet on the floor. The air between you had gone heavier—not hostile, just dense with something unnamed, something that felt like it should be acknowledged but wasn't.

At the balcony door, he hesitated, one hand resting on the frame, his back turned to you.

Without saying anything, you stepped up beside him, he turned his head just slightly, just enough that you caught the edge of his profile. The dip of his brow, the faintest press of his lips—not quite a smile, not quite not.

Then he slid the door open.

The sound was soft: the low shuffle of glass against its track, the hush of the rain deepening. A wind, cool and wet, brushed into the room like breath.

You followed him out.

The balcony was small, barely more than a ledge dressed in an old chair and a potted plant that hadn’t quite made it through last winter. But the overhang held, and the air under it was dry enough, close enough.

Geto faced the street, resting his elbows on the railing, the rain just beyond the reach of his sleeve. You took your place beside him, resting your back on the cool railing and crossing your arms over your chest.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

The city below was muted—just the hush of tires through water, the hum of distant traffic, the occasional splash of a passing bus. 

You could hear the rain more than you could see it. A sheet of sound, steady and relentless.

He exhaled slow, then reached into his coat pocket.

You weren’t surprised when he pulled out a box of cigarettes and slid one out. It looked nearly untouched—he must’ve bought the box today. 

He held the dart loosely between two fingers, almost uncertain.

“I try not to smoke anymore,” he murmured. “I don’t do it as often now. Just...sometimes.”

You didn’t ask what sometimes meant. You didn’t need to.

The wet air kissed your cheeks, your jaw, and you welcomed it—something grounding, something that didn’t ask anything back.

He lit the cigarette with a practiced flick of his lighter. The flame flared, brief and golden, then died.

He didn’t smoke right away. Just held it there, watching the tip, watching the rain.

“So, how was your weekend?” He asked, voice low, roughened just slightly by disuse and rain.

You glanced at him, then down at the cigarette between his fingers. You gave a small nod toward it—a silent ask.

He looked at you, eyes catching yours for a beat before passing it over without a word.

You took it gently, brought it to your lips and nhaled slowly.

The taste hit the back of your throat—acrid, familiar, not exactly missed. But there was a strange comfort in it. A muscle memory. Something from a version of you that used to exist, still flickering somewhere in the corners.

You exhaled toward the street, smoke curling into the wet air, disappearing into rain.

“It was good,” you said, still looking outward. 

He shifted slightly, fishing into his coat pocket with his free hand. The sound of crinkling cellophane, then the softer, telltale click of a lighter again.

When you finally looked over, he wasn’t watching you—he was focused on the joint between his fingers, bringing it to life with a slow inhale. 

The smell changed almost immediately. Warmer. Thicker. Earthy, familiar, and oddly grounding.

He took a drag, held it, then exhaled slow—upward, toward the overhang above your heads. The smoke gathered there a moment, then faded with the breeze.

“Mostly just…chores around the house. Ran a few errands. Ended up being pretty convenient that I cleaned, y’know, since you went ahead and invited yourself on over.” You cast him a sideways glance, the hint of a smile tugging at your mouth. 

He chuckled without looking at you, low and genuine, flashing a glimpse of perfect teeth. “Well, now you’re making it seem like I’m not welcome here.”

Your smile deepened, barely. You took another drag, slower this time, eyes back on the city.

“I didn’t say that.”

The words hung there between you, light on the surface—but underlined with something quieter, something real. 

“Trade you…” He said, gesturing lazily with the joint between two fingers, eyes flicking to your lips—or I guess more likely the cigarette resting between your lips.

You gave a soft hum, considering. The rain had thinned to a mist now, no longer loud, just steady. A hush against the concrete.

You took one last drag, then you pulled it from your mouth and turned to hand it to him.

It wasn’t until it left your fingers that you noticed it—that faint, smudged stain on the filter. A soft pink, barely there, pressed from your tinted lip balm. Innocuous. Ordinary.

But his eyes found it instantly.

Just a flicker. A pause.

His gaze caught on the mark as he took the cigarette from your hand, and you saw something subtle shift in his face. Nothing overt—just the smallest tension in his jaw, the way his fingers curled slightly tighter around the paper.

He didn’t comment. Didn’t even meet your eyes right away.

He took the cigarette, turned it gently between his fingers, then brought it to his lips in one smooth motion. Inhaled once, eyes still lowered, as if reading something written in the imprint you left behind.

You accepted the joint in return, the warm tip grazing your palm as it passed between you. 

You didn’t say anything, just raised it to your lips, took a puff.

The pull was easy—too easy.

The taste was sharp, earthy at the edges, thick in a way that settled fast like a fog behind your eyes.

Warmth slid in low through your ribs, slow and syrupy, like a door creaking open somewhere you hadn’t meant to revisit.

You held the smoke a second longer than necessary. Let it press into your lungs. And when you exhaled, it left like a sigh you didn’t know you’d been holding onto.

The relief came quickly. Expected in a way that unsettled you—not loud, not dizzying, just nice. Just good. A gentle hum beneath your skin, a softness in your chest, like the evening had finally remembered how to breathe.

And for a moment, you didn’t mind how much you liked it.

Your head tipped slightly back, eyes half-lidded to the street below, and you let the feeling settle. The rain was still falling, but quieter now—like background music, like it had always been there. The city lights blinked lazy and soft through the mist.

You took another drag.

Slower. Deeper.

And it hit the same—pleasant, indulgent, that precise kind of calm that was once your to answer to everything.

It almost made you smile.

Almost.

But when you glanced at him again, he was watching you.

Not in the obvious way. Not full-on.

Just that same glance from the corner of his eye, lazy on the surface—but heavy underneath. 

And when he brought the cigarette back to his mouth, it was deliberate. You knew it must’ve been.

He twisted the cigarette between his fingers, aligning it perfectly to the spot. That same spot. The one your lips had marked.

He inhaled again, slower this time. 

A deeper pull. And though he didn’t say anything, you saw it—the way his eyes fluttered shut just slightly, the way his brow smoothed. Like whatever sharpness had caught in him earlier had been gentled. Calmed.

Maybe it was the nicotine. Maybe it was you.

You looked away before your gaze could make the moment into something it wasn’t meant to be. 

Your hand rested on the damp railing again, fingers curling against the chill of the metal, still faintly buzzing from the hit. The high was spreading in that quiet way it always used to—like warm hands up your spine, like pressure leaving your bones one vertebra at a time.

You hadn’t touched this stuff in over a year.

Hadn’t even really thought about it, not seriously.

But now, in the dim orange spill of streetlights and the hush of rainfall, it was like no time had passed at all. The joint burned evenly between your fingers. Your muscles remembered this. Your breath did. 

You blinked slowly, eyes heavy-lidded, the weight behind them not unpleasant. But you could feel it in your chest, too—a tug. A whisper of something you hadn’t wanted to hear again.

Still, you took another hit.

And didn’t stop yourself.

Beside you, Geto leaned forward slightly, arms braced on the railing. His cigarette dangled lazily between two fingers now, smoke curling up past his wrist in slow spirals. You watched the city together in silence, not speaking, not needing to.

But it didn’t last long.

Eventually, you broke it—soft, careful, your voice curved with a lazy edge.

“So,” you murmured, watching headlights crawl through the wet street below, “how was your weekend?”

His lips quirked, barely.

“Do anything better than chores and errands?” You teased.

He glanced sideways at you, the corner of his mouth still curved like he was trying not to smile too much.

There was a pause.

Then: “Mm… not really.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Not even one thrilling adventure?”

He gave a soft huff of breath, the closest thing to a laugh, and looked back out at the street.

“Not even one,” he said. “Unless you count reorganizing my spice rack.”

You snorted, quiet and amused, smoke catching faintly in your throat.

“Very thrilling.”

“Reckless, even,” he added, and you heard the warmth in it. The ease. “How’s the job hunt going?”

Your fingers tightened at the question, just slightly.

Instead of answering, you lifted the joint to your lips again.

The inhale came slow. Heat filled your lungs, stretching the seconds out. Let the silence stretch just enough to feel like control, not avoidance.

Then came the exhale, steady and quiet, smoke lifting into the air like it might carry the dreadful question away.

“It’s… going,” you said finally, voice soft.

Not a lie, exactly. But not much of an answer either.

He nodded once. Didn’t push. Just shifted his weight on the railing again, the movement quiet, patient.

You watched his profile from the corner of your eye—how his brow stayed smooth, how he didn’t look at you like he was waiting for more. Just listening. Just holding the space.

You wet your lips, thumb rolling over the seam of the joint between your fingers.

“I sent out a bunch of stuff last week,” you added, more to the night air than to him. “But, to be honest with you, I don’t even know what I’m applying for.”

That made him glance over—not sharply, not surprised. Just a soft turn of the head, eyes dark and steady under the lazy curve of his lashes.

“None of these jobs are…” Your fingers opened slightly. Then closed again. “They’re not things I want to do. I don’t even know what I do want. I just—” You broke off, shrugging. “—can’t tell if I’m lost or just tired.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It moved, slow and full like a tide pulling back.

Geto didn’t rush to fill it. He leaned his arms on the railing, wrists loose. His voice came after a beat—low, unintrusive.

“That’s not nothing. Knowing what you don’t want is at least something.”

His tone wasn’t placating. No hollow comfort. Just a truth, offered to you quietly.

You exhaled through your nose, not quite a laugh. “Well it feels like nothing. Doesn’t really help when every realistic job option sounds like a slightly twisted version of the same thing.”

He nodded again, slow this time. The city noise buzzed beneath you both—distant horns, a siren off somewhere, the soft shuffle of wind over brick.

“People make it sound like you’re supposed to know,” he said. “Have a plan. A five-year vision. Some neat little road map with checkboxes.” 

His mouth curved, faint and crooked. “But most of the people I know just picked something and hoped they’d grow into it…You don’t have to want something extraordinary,” he added. “You just have to want something that feels yours.”

His soft-spoken words landed like pressure on a bruise—quiet, but hard. Your jaw tightened before your head turned away from him.

“The thing is, Geto, lots of people did grow into it. Gojo’s out here in his glass-walled office, pitching brand deals and loving every second of it. Shoko’s practically sleepwalking through med school and still managing to thrive. Even you—you’re doing actual good in the world, and don’t pretend like you couldn’t have walked into any job you wanted after university.”

A breath caught in your chest and didn’t know where to go from here. 

“I just don’t want to pick wrong,” you said.

“And be stuck. Like—I keep having these dreams where I wake up and everything around me is beige. Beige house. Beige job. Beige life!” You paused and finally looked at him again.

“A completely beige life! And it’s mine. And I chose it. And there’s no way out.”

Wow, you did not expect to say all that…

He didn’t answer right away. 

The glowing end of the lip-stained cigarette pulsed once more before he pulled the last drag, fingers steady even as smoke curled between them. Then he flicked it over the edge of the railing and leaned forward on his elbows, voice low.

“You’re allowed to change your mind, you know.”

The joint had gone out between your fingers—it was basically dead anyways—and you weren’t going to bother relighting it.

“But that feels like failing,” you said.

Something about saying it aloud made your stomach twist, like you’d just admitted to a crack in the foundation that everyone else had somehow managed to patch up.

He shifted his weight slightly, forearms braced on the edge of the balcony. The cotton of his sleeve brushed yours—just barely—but he didn’t pull away. And we both know you didn’t either…

“Is there nothing you’ve ever had a dream of?” He asked, voice soft but steady.

You blinked. Let the question hang there, raw and too close.

“I don’t know,” you said eventually, eyes fixed on the blurry constellation of taillights below. “I used to want things. Or I thought I did. But now it’s like—I can’t tell what was mine and what was just… momentum. Expectations. Stuff I thought I was supposed to want.”

His expression didn’t shift, but something in the line of his body—shoulders easing, jaw relaxing—held quiet understanding.

“I wanted to be a lawyer once,” you added, not sure why. “Not because I liked the idea of it. I just… thought it sounded impressive. Like something that made people listen to you.”

He nodded. No judgment. Just an acknowledgment, a gentle thread of attention.

“And you know,” you continued, voice tapering off at the edges, “now that I’m thinking about it…I think I just really wanted people to listen to me.”

You didn’t expect a response, and none came. Just the soft sound of traffic below, the distant hum of someone’s TV flickering through a half-open window.

“I don’t even really need to be thinking about this on a Sunday night,” you said, almost to yourself. 

He made a small sound beside you—something between a breath and a murmur—and then, gently:

“It’s okay.”

You didn’t look at him, but the quiet weight of it settled somewhere behind your ribs.

You stubbed out the joint on the railing, letting the butt of it fall to the empty street below, then pushed open the balcony door. Warm apartment air met your skin, the faint smell of old incense and herbal undertones from the soaked tea leaves still sitting on the counter.

Geto followed you inside. The door clicked shut behind him with a soft finality.

Inside, the apartment felt dim and close, like everything was exhaling at once. You stretched your arms overhead, spine cracking with the movement.

“I’m gonna hate myself tomorrow, usually I’m in bed by 10pm,” you muttered, scrubbing a hand down your face and glaring at the clock on your oven: 11:44pm

He leaned against the back of the couch. “You working in-office?”

“Unfortunately,” you said dryly. “Which means I get to play subway sardines at 8:30 a.m. again.”

He made a low noise—sympathy or shared suffering, you weren’t sure. “I’ve got a client downtown at nine. If I leave late, I’ll spend the whole ride with my face in someone’s armpit.”

“God. That’s bleak.”

“It’s reality.”

You pulled a face, half grimace, half grin. “We should unionize.”

Geto laughed—quiet and unhurried, the sound low in his chest. It wasn’t loud or showy, but it curled at the edges like warmth creeping in from a cold windowpane. 

He tipped his head back slightly, the light from the kitchen catching on his jaw, and when his bloodshot eyes met yours once more, there was such a warmth in his clouded gaze that you could feel it spreading through your chest.

“God, you’re pretty funny,” he said, voice like dry silk, soft but certain. Not teasing. Like he meant it. Like it was something he’d only just noticed, and was tucking away for later.

Your cheeks flushed—a slow bloom of warmth that caught you off guard. You looked down, caught between annoyance and something softer.

“Glad you finally caught on,” you muttered, voice low.

He smiled then—a slow, quiet curve of his lips that carried a thousand unspoken things. It wasn’t a showy grin, but the kind that softened the space between you, folding the silence into something almost tangible.

After a moment, he shrugged into his jacket, the damp fabric clinging briefly before settling over his broad shoulders. 

The weight of it shifted as he moved, a subtle reminder of the rain outside lingering with him.

You stepped toward the door, fingers grazing the cool metal handle. 

Pulling it open, a wash of the pale, sterile hallway light spilled in, pushing back the amber glow and lingering scents of your apartment like a slow tide retreating.

He stood framed in that sudden contrast—his silhouette sharp, hands tucked casually into his pockets. His eyes caught yours for a flicker, quiet and steady, before he stepped out into the dim corridor.

“Goodnight,” he said, voice low but clear.

“Goodnight,” you echoed, the word hanging soft between the closing door and the returning quiet. 

And when your smile finally fell, a few moments after the door clicked shut, the ache in your cheeks was still there—like your face hadn’t gotten the message that he was gone.

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[simplygojo]

QUESTION FOR Y'ALL

I may never write this out ever but a thought just came into my head.

And I also don't know how I feel about it but wanted to ask the people...

Like just the angsty moody smoker pair of them, underrate duo??? maybe???